


Rain and Its Incendiary Properties

by firtree



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi makes a guest appearance, Blood, Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Flashbacks, Gratuitous metaphors, M/M, Post-Time Skip, additional info in the notes (nothing bad i promise), also, atsumu being the worst, auditory voyeurism (but it's consensual), disaffected vampire kiyoomi, garlic - Freeform, hinted bokuaka, hinted kagehina, mostly colourblind sakusa, one instance of masturbation, sakusa being a massive gay disaster, sakusa pines, takes places around the Schweiden Adlers game, there's a heist, vampire Sakusa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firtree/pseuds/firtree
Summary: Ever since meeting Miya Atsumu, Kiyoomi's life has been a continuous stream of very unlucky incidents that have bled into a veritable sea of regret in which he finds himself, with no hopes of swimming back to the shore. In short, everything that is wrong with his life can (and will be) be attributed to making the acquaintance of Miya Atsumu.Or: Some might think that becoming a vampire is the biggest problem that Kiyoomi will ever have to face. Wrong. His biggest problem comes in the form of Miya Atsumu and the crush he definitely does not have on him.
Relationships: Komori Motoya & Sakusa Kiyoomi, Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 27
Kudos: 412





	Rain and Its Incendiary Properties

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so... i've been working on this for a month or so and i finally finished it.  
> this was born out of a discarded piece of dialogue for another story, and somehow it became this monster.  
> the coconut water solution and the anaemia thing were mentioned in tumblr posts that i saw years ago  
> the mature rating is for one instance of masturbation (i didn't want to rate the fic explicit because there's not much else that warrants the rating)  
> the whole vampire thing is a mix of all the various franchise surrounding vampires and my brain going: ok but vampire bats.
> 
> there are also various references (brooklyn 99, john mulaney's "she's a bitch and i like her so much", robert frost's "ice and fire",...) scattered throughout
> 
> in case you want to know before you read, there is one additional piece of information in the end notes, but be warned: it contains SPOILERS, but if you want to find out now, you can. (also, you might see the end of the fic and that'd be no fun, right?)

Kiyoomi knows most of the prominent high school volleyball players, either personally or by word-of-mouth. Some, he’s had the pleasure of defeating, like Bokuto. Others, he’s only had the pleasure of watching from afar and reading about in _Volleyball Monthly_ , like Wakatoshi. The rest, he’s heard about, seen around. All of them fall into one of these categories, with one notable exception. 

Strangely, despite the fact that he played against and beat his team in the Interhigh, the misfortune of a formal introduction to Inarizaki’s setter doesn’t befall him until the All-Japan training camp. 

Formal might be stretching it a little.

It’s an uncharacteristically sunny day for the middle of winter. Kiyoomi is wearing another layer under his neon-yellow-and-green tracksuit jacket to combat the chill that seems to follow him no matter the time of year, has plagued him for as long as he can remember. He tries not to think about the fact that he can see people’s breaths curling in the air like smoke. 

He has just met the setter of the team who’s responsible for Wakatoshi not participating in this year’s Nationals. Safe to say, he’s a little irritated (more so than usual). He so rarely gets the chance to face off to a worthy opponent, and his last meeting with Wakatoshi lies a while back. This is the last year that he could have participated and now Kiyoomi won’t see him again until they’re both standing on a much greater stage. Wanting to beat him is the only reason he’s going to miss his presence at the tournament, he has zero ulterior motives, no matter what Komori might want to insinuate. 

He’s glad to go inside, into a warm room, even if it means he has to endure the presence of other people. He presses close to the wall, watching from a distance as they’re handed the room keys to the dorms they’ll be staying at while they’re here. Once again, he’s thankful for Komori’s soothing presence and his willingness to interact with people on his behalf. He could do without the smartass remarks, though.

Komori and he are walking to their assigned dorm, eager to set their bags down and get under the cleansing spray of a shower as soon as possible when it happens. He’s ashamed to say he’s entirely unprepared, too absorbed in his own thoughts, playing out an imaginary argument between and Komori, concerning a certain left-handed wing-spiker that won’t be participating in this Spring tournament. He’s just come up with a solid come-back that Komori won’t be able to refute when footsteps come bounding down the hallway. 

Kiyoomi is only half-listening to Komori’s excited chatter about meeting new people – no thank you – and improving their technique. His mind is focused on the very mature and fictional argument he’s currently winning and the shower that awaits him, yearning to wash off the germs from public transport and warm up. It’s like a buzzing, taking over in his brain, blocking out the rest of the world around him. 

Just when Komori is reaching for the door to unlock it, a force knocks directly into Kiyoomi and sends him stumbling, his bag slipping off his shoulder and onto the floor. This would not have been a problem if his hands weren’t stuffed into his pockets, giving him no chance to rebalance himself. He can’t catch his fall and goes down like a cut-down tree and ends up face-first on the hardwood floor, a heavy weight on top of him. It’s pressing down on him, most of it focused on his right shoulder that landed on his bag, or more accurately, on the volleyball shoes inside it. His right arm is held at an uncomfortable angle, courtesy of his hands-in-pockets policy that he is now starting to regret. Of course he’d strain his shoulder on the first day of training camp.

Distantly, he thinks he smells rain.

Kiyoomi swallows, careful not to breathe in the dust and dirt he assumes are on the floor. Not that he can breathe with the tightness gripping his chest. He stays very still, hoping that whatever is on top of him will move on their own without him having to touch it. 

He tries to limit the contact with the floor, glad for his mask to shield his face. He hopes it won’t tear. It can’t tear. It’s the only safeguard he has to protect himself. He needs to get off the floor, now. He can already feel the integrity of his only defence against the dirt, the grime, the germs diminishing. 

Thankfully, the weight vanishes. Unfortunately, it does so by pressing their hands into Kiyoomi’s shoulder blades to push themselves up and away from him. He feels a twinge in his collar bone, all the way to his arm socket. He’s going to need to wash that jacket with bleach or some kind of heavy-duty industrial solvent if he has any hopes of ridding it of the contamination. When was the last time that hooligan washed his hands? He shudders just thinking about it. 

As the weight on his back lifts, the pressure around his lungs gets lighter. After a moment, he makes the executive decision of removing his hands from his pockets so that he can get up off the floor. He can wash them later. He will wash them later, along with all of the clothes he’s wearing. 

When he is upright again, he is met with the sight of a wide-eyed Komori, mouth gaping like a fish and a grinning mustard-blond guy in a maroon tracksuit that he remembers from the Interhigh. Oh, does he remember him. 

Cocksure and smug coupled with a vicious smile that Kiyoomi wanted to wipe off his face no matter what it took. The result of throwing narcissism, an ego the size of Jupiter that is just as fragile as it is big, a horrible personality that thrives on spewing outdated insults and drug-store hair-dye into a blender.

Much to Kiyoomi’s dismay, not even beating their team had put a dent in his arrogant front. If anything, it made lips stretch wider, baring teeth like he was going to lunge at him to rip out his throat. 

The glint in his eyes right before he aimed a serve at him gave spark to something deep within Kiyoomi’s chest. It stayed there, barely hot enough to make a difference, simmering, left alone, ignored to be dealt with at a later date.

It was easy to disregard the flutter of heat in his stomach when that smile was aimed at him from across the net, dismiss it as excitement in the middle of the game. 

For the first time in his life, Kiyoomi experiences bloodlust. It’s a dry anger, simmering in the depths of his stomach, not yet boiling but the temperature is slowly rising. He snaps his mouth shut, his teeth clinking and grinding together roughly and balls his hands into fists at his sides. Idly, he wonders how his knuckles would feel against the boy’s jaw, and how much the impact would hurt. Maybe it would be worth it to wipe that smile off his face. 

Gently, he rolls his shoulder, trying to dispel the minute ache.

“Didn’t see ya there,” he drawls, not the least bit sorry. The corners of his closed eyes crinkle and his mouth stretches a smidgeon wider. His grin is all teeth, canines sharp and pointed, lethal if he wanted them to be. They’re just a little short of normal, a lot enticing, and Kiyoomi kind of wants to know if they could pierce through skin. 

Kiyoomi clenches his fists tighter. 

“Watch where you’re going,” he hisses through grit teeth. He needs a shower, bleach, something, _now_. He fights the urge to scratch at his palms to get rid of the grime he knows is there. 

The jackass finally drops his smile and opens his eyes. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, one hand dangling at his side, the other on his hip, the picture of nonchalance. “Fancy runnin’ into you here, Sakusa.”

Kiyoomi puts as much venom into his glare as he can muster. If he’s lucky, now will be the time that he discovers that he’s a distant descendant of Medusa and the cocksure dickhead opposite him will turn to stone. All he would have to do then would be taking a sledgehammer to his smug face and bashing him to pieces until all that remains is a headstone.

“Who are you again,” Kiyoomi says, eyebrow cocked. 

No such luck. Maybe he needs to try harder. 

Mustard-hair bristles, like Kiyoomi not knowing his name is a personal affront to him. Judging by the size of the guy’s ego, it probably is. His eyes narrow sharply and he steps forward, meeting him head-on. Or, well, as close as he can get. Kiyoomi is still a little taller than him. “Miya Atsumu,” he snarls, baring his teeth again, a clear display of threat. What is he, an animal, trying to establish dominance? 

Kiyoomi senses a vague feeling of trepidation in his gut, but he ignores it. What else is he going to do? Make him fall harder the next time around? 

They keep glaring at each other, Kiyoomi mostly because he’s still holding out hope that he may become a sculptor yet, and Miya because he thinks he’s being intimidating. 

Thankfully, before he has to waste any more precious air talking to this simpleton, Komori unlocks the door to their shared room. He side-steps him, careful not to touch even an inch of him, and grabs his bag off the floor. He shoots him one last disdainful look before closing the door in his face.

“Ya better remember the name this time!” he hears, followed by angry footsteps.

Kiyoomi thinks he’d like to be able to wipe it from his memory just to spite him. But he already knows that his horrible mustard-hair, his smug smile and the cocksure attitude that makes him as irritable as it does intriguing – and much to Kiyoomi’s chagrin, decidedly too memorable – are going to a permanent fixture in his mind, because he loves torturing himself with pretty, unattainable boys that he shouldn’t give any attention other than when he’s on the court trying to beat them.

If he never has to see the guy again, it will be too soon, he decides, like he has any kind of sway in the matter. He could try to convince himself that he doesn’t want a chance to watch him play, to beat him, to watch him on the court, but it would be a futile endeavour.

The air inside the dorm room feels too thick to breathe, but Kiyoomi knows that’s just because he hasn’t taken a proper breath since Miya crashed into him and upended his life. 

Trembling with the need to get rid of the dust, the dirt, the grime that is on him, he rushes to the baths as quickly as he can. 

He scrubs at his skin, his hair, his face until it feels raw, until it burns away the remnants of the filth. It’s not water but flames licking at his skin, the soap but gasoline to feed the sting, and he is the kindling for the fire that he doesn’t know how to put out. Maybe he doesn’t want to, maybe he wants to burn up and emerge anew. Maybe he wants the heat, wants the flames to rip him apart, be rebuilt from the ashes.

Fire beats the icy cloy, the dull pain, the numbing nausea he experiences every time he’s confronted with all of the disgusting things this world has to offer. The cold has been with him for as long as he can remember, slumbering idly in his toes and fingers no matter the weather, dropping into his stomach at the thought of touch and dirt and germs.

He’d pick the purifying, undiluted, honest pain of fire over the deceitful, slow-spreading ache that comes with ice any day.

Stepping out from the shower, droplets fall down onto the tiled floor. As he emerges, steam curling around him, he feels like pure white. He stands there, legs trembling like a new-born deer’s, skin pink but cleansed from the ordeal in the hallway, and he can breathe again. 

* * *

In his second year of university, Kiyoomi’s diet undergoes a change. This change was not planned nor voluntary, but he makes his peace with it.

Before, his fridge was stocked with eggs, milk, tofu and barley tea. There were cucumbers and tomatoes, carrots and salad and various other things, depending on the season, in his vegetable drawer. On occasion, he would buy fish or chicken. His pantry was filled with rice and canned food, ramen and soy sauce, broth for soup, the works. 

Then, he went to a party. Or more accurately, he was dragged to a party by Komori, who then promptly left to go mingle, leaving Kiyoomi in a corner to ‘socialise’. He stays there for exactly thirty-three minutes before deciding to leave. 

What he remembers is the brisk night breeze, the smell of booze and other less legal substances, the booming sound of the music. What he remembers is meeting someone who asked him about his mask. What he remembers is his one-word, disgruntled answer. _Germs_. What he remembers is the question, 

“If there were a way to be safe from all the germs and immune to all diseases, would you take it?” spoken in a honey-smooth baritone.

What he remembers is waking up in the morning to a grey room. The curtains are drawn, blinds shut. Somehow, he can see his surroundings perfectly, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. He’s more concerned with the fact that he’s lying fully clothed in his bed, with a faint pain in his neck, a throbbing head and a burning throat. It’s a dry heat that makes it hard to swallow, hard to think. Every movement he makes hurts, piercing down to a cellular level that he didn’t even know he could feel.

It’s like he’s touching a live wire. There’s a current running through him, setting him ablaze from the inside. 

Taking off his college-party scented clothes is like running sandpaper over his skin, the fabric scraping over every inch, rubbing him raw. The sweater he’s wearing is greyish, even though he swears it was red. When he lifts his arms to remove it, he feels every muscle, every tendon ache like he just played ten sets without stretching beforehand.

Every step he takes towards the bathroom is akin to walking on pins or stepping on glass. His legs are shaking, muscles straining to carry his body from his bedroom to the shower he desperately needs to get rid of this itch under his skin. 

He unceremoniously drops his clothes into the washer and turns on the water, and realises that something is very, _very_ wrong. The spray of his showerhead sprouting water against the tiles reverberates in his skull, making his ears ring like he’s standing next to a loudspeaker in a club or a jackhammer on a busy street. 

He feels the heat of the water on his skin like it’s scalding hot, but when he looks at the regulator for the temperature, it tells him it’s arctic. When he scrubs over his skin with his sud-spewing loofa, it feels paper-thin and uneven, yet smooth like marble, robust like granite. Every motion of the sponge against his arms and legs and torso makes him vibrate all the way down to his marrow, so he keeps the shower short. 

Towelling off is a challenge in and of itself. He’s shaking, trembling like a leaf in the wind with every brush against his skin. He can make out every individual fibre, every thread and his skin feels raw and tender. He fully expects it to be red and irritated, but when he looks down to check, it looks– greyish, pale and white and scattered with moles, just like always. 

He dreads putting on fresh clothes, for good reason. The scrape of his underwear going up his legs is nearly unbearable, and moving them to put on sweatpants makes every tendon, every muscle twinge so horribly, he nearly falls down twice with the effort it takes to ignore the ache and keep himself standing. Putting on his shirt is infinitely worse.

When he goes to brush his teeth, he doesn’t expect the flaming ache that erupts in his jaw and especially around his canines. It’s reminiscent of the time he got his wisdom teeth, only amped up to a hundred. His gums are sore and he expects them to be bleeding, but everything looks in order when he checks in the mirror. 

Looking at the lamp above said mirror proves to have been a horrible mistake because he immediately feels his eyes dry out and tear up, and for a moment, he can barely see anything but the vague outline of the mirror, his own muddy reflection and the cupboard next to it, so he turns it off and resumes brushing his teeth with only the light bleeding in from the open door that leads out into the hallway. 

He opts to wait with his skincare routine because his skin feels a little too sensitive to be actively rubbing off the uppermost layer.

The throbbing of his skull has not subsided since the shower. If anything, it’s getting worse. It’s almost like there are flies buzzing around him that he can’t tune out or like his phone is vibrating on a hard surface and he can’t seem to turn it off. It gets stronger the closer he gets to the kitchen.

He hears the humming sound of the fridge and has to clutch the doorframe when a metallic smell hits his nose. It makes his knees buckle and grip onto the wood, white-knuckled and fingers tense as a bowstring, splintering it. His throat feels like someone held a hot branding iron against it or like he swallowed glass and it scraped his oesophagus open. 

Daylight pours in through the window, and he stumbles over to close the blinds, dipping the room in darkness. Strangely, it relieves the strain on his eyes and he can see that there’s a note pinned to his fridge. A note that he knows he didn’t put there. A note with handwriting he doesn’t recognise. He forces himself to walk over and investigate. 

He rips it off despite the ache in his arm that makes itself known as soon as he lifts it and the quivering of his hand. The edge of the paper might as well be a blade of a knife against his palm. All it says is _make sure you drink what I left in your fridge, all the best_

His spine goes ramrod straight. Cold dread washes over him, burrows under his skin, sinks into his bones. Someone was in his apartment. Someone touched his fridge. Someone did something.

He swallows against the ache in his throat and the heaviness in his chest and opens his fridge. Light pours out, and he has to squint his eyes to see properly. He clutches the door with a force that dents the metal when his vision adjusts enough to notice it.

There, between his favourite yoghurt and a pack of tofu, sits a blood bag. That explains the smell. It has the name of the local hospital printed on it, along with _AB_ and a seal of quality.

The scorching heat in his throat that he realises now was but a dying flame before flares up anew, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He gasps against the parched feel of his throat and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s reaching for it, tearing off the port, raising it to his lips. His gums ache terribly and his canines feel sharp and pointed when his tongue runs over them.

The liquid fills his mouth, slides down his throat. Slowly, as the bag empties, the heat subsides and it no longer feels like his throat was ripped open, shredded from the inside. 

He opens his eyes, blinks against the light pouring out from the fridge. It’s almost blinding. With too much force, he closes it and stumbles back against the kitchen counter, but he barely feels the edge of digging into his lower back. 

The bone-deep ache has vanished, replaced by a feeling of… serenity, calmness, purity. It’s like he’s floating on air even though he is solidly rooted to the ground, socked feet against tiles. No more buzzing from inside his head, no more strained muscles, no more anything.

It’s everything and nothing at once. He can feel every nerve in his body, every nanometre of skin, but it’s easy to tune out. He lifts his hand and before the thought has even finished processing in his mind, he can see it in front of him. There’s no tremble, no quiver, no unnecessary movement. It’s simply there. 

He flexes, makes a fist and there’s… strength where there shouldn’t be. Strength that doesn’t come from playing volleyball for most of his life. He’s inexplicably sure he could crush a boulder if he were so inclined, with just a minute movement of his fingers.

He stares down at the empty bag in his other hand, horror dawning. He just consumed someone else’s blood. Disgust drops into his stomach like a bucket of ice water down the back of his shirt and he shudders against the sensation. He throws it in the trash and covers it up with wadded-up paper towels. Hoping to feel the comforting thu-thump of his heartbeat, he clutches at his chest, but he is met with stillness and silence. 

Panic freezes him on the spot. In a frenzy, he rushes into his bedroom in search of his phone. It’s on the bed next to him, plugged in. He has no memory of doing that. 

When he looks at the screen, there are several missed calls from Komori and even more messages, demanding in no uncertain terms that he call him back immediately. The friendlier ones are from three days ago. The most recent one was delivered just an hour or so ago. The green icons next to the notifications are the only bright thing on the otherwise grey-scale screen. 

His hands shouldn’t be as stock-still as they are when he swipes right on the missed call. The dial tone rings once before he hears, “Sakusa, what the entire _fuck_!”

He holds his phone at a safe distance from his ear because Komori’s voice is too loud in his ears.

“Are you going to explain to me where the hell you’ve been for the past three days? You vanished from the party without so much as a goodbye, what the hell!” Only a friend could sound simultaneously outraged and worried. 

“I–” he starts, his voice sounding foreign. It’s clearer than he remembers it being, smooth like honey, a deep baritone.

“I’ve been to your apartment but you didn’t answer! Are you even home?”

“Yes,” he hears himself saying. “I, uh. I was asleep.”

“For three days?” he shrills. “You missed practise! I covered for you with the coach, told him you were too sick to come in, but that’s not going to fly much longer! He was already sceptical, you know, considering your _entire_ personality.”

The next words roll off his lips effortlessly, the lie undetectable. “I wasn’t feeling good at the party, so I decided to go home. I had a drink after you left me, and I only just woke up.”

A gasp, then, “Oh my god did someone drug you?”

“Maybe. I remember talking to somebody, everything after that is hazy.”

“Kiyoomi, are you… did something…,” he hedges, not brave enough to speak the words that are undoubtedly sitting on the tip of his tongue. 

“No. No, I think…” Just for a second, he debates with himself whether or not to tell Komori about what he knows happened to him. The decision is made before the thought properly formulates in his mind. “You should come over. It’s better I tell you in person.”

There’s a pause at the other end of the line. “Do you need me to bring anything?”

“No. But, if you haven’t already–”

“Shower and the works, I know. I’m packing a fresh set of clothes as we speak. Don’t worry. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

In a rare instance of vulnerability, he says, “Thank you.”

Komori’s laugh sounds through the speakers like a wind chime. “No problem. See you,” he says and hangs up the call.

Kiyoomi slides his phone into the pocket of his sweats and walks to the entrance, unlocks the door and then makes his way to the couch. His living room is a lot less colourful than he remembers it being. It’s mostly grey, safe for the coffee-table, standing still and shrill in neon-green. He lets himself fall down onto the sofa and grabs for his laptop that is sitting there half-open. 

He adjusts the screen brightness to the lowest setting because it’s burning his eyes to the point of near-tears, making it impossible for him to see anything more than just vague smudges that might be lines of words. 

This is fine. This is just a problem he has to solve. He’ll find a solution, a way to deal with this that doesn’t force him to repeat his actions from the kitchen. He won’t let himself be overcome with the force that guided him to drink the blood again. 

He goes on to do some research that he feels incredibly stupid about, but it gives him a game-plan to deal with his newly acquired condition. He reads through his lecture notes from his introductory biology course, considers all of his extensive knowledge about countless diseases that he’s been trying to avoid for most – if not all – of his life, and all the information about vampires that he’s gathered through film and media, and comes to the following conclusion: 

Vampires don’t drink human blood to stay youthful, they drink it because it’s the most straightforward way of replenishing their depleted iron reserves, which makes vampirism an affliction not unlike anaemia. His assumption is that, upon becoming a vampire, blood and other bodily fluids in the system are slowly replaced by a different substance, one of which is the gastrointestinal acid that allows the body to break down food and absorb the minerals and vitamins contained therein, making nutrition obsolete. Over time, the blood in his newly transformed body will diminish until only ichor (which will operate as a stand-in for all fluids within the body) remains. Therein lies the problem: the ichor, while it has similar properties to blood, does not retain the ability to produce haemoglobin or store iron within its cellular structure. Unless iron is supplemented by an outside source, the resulting deficiency will lead to dizziness, fatigue and a weakened state, causing him to be uncomfortable, downtrodden and severely thirsty to the point of insanity.

Kiyoomi would prefer this outside source not to be actual blood, which is why he looks up alternatives to blood transfusions. Surprisingly, what he comes up with is coconut water. It’ll work as a stand-in for blood, along with iron supplement pills. If that doesn’t work, he’ll find another way. Iron sucrose seems to be a common treatment for anaemia, and so long as he still has his own blood in his body, he’ll be fine. He just has to maintain a continuous intake of iron because his body probably isn’t able to store it anymore. And considering the lifespan of red blood cells, he estimates he has about four months. Assuming his hypotheses are correct. 

Just his luck that while he now appears to be immortal and immune to any and all diseases, this cure that’s been given to him is an illness in and of itself. And the one effective treatment is consuming blood that is probably ripe with germs. Granted, those germs are harmless to him in his new state, but that doesn’t mean he’s just suddenly fine with them. 

There are countless advantages to this. But– his colour vision is screwed to hell and he can probably no longer ingest food and in a few months’ time, he’ll have to get a blood transfusion that probably won’t work intravenously. 

He thinks that, as long as he doesn’t have to resort to drinking blood, he’ll be fine. He can deal with being factually immune to diseases. It’s a blessing, really. So what if he can’t eat normal food anymore? Cooking was never really his favourite pastime. 

He’s pulled out of his thoughts when he hears Komori’s footsteps in the hall and snaps his laptop shut. Before he knows it, he’s up and on the way to greet him before the door clicks open. 

“Hey there,” he says, voice chipper and bright, carrying a bag over one shoulder. Komori’s hair looks grey and dreary, not ruddy brown like he remembers. He’s wearing a yellow jacket and dark sweatpants that could be any colour, but Kiyoomi can’t tell which. Knowing Komori, it could range from black to pink to orange. His fashion sense changes like the weather and Kiyoomi never knows what he’s going to get. Either Komori plans his entire outfit around one colour or he wears five different ones that should never meet. 

He bends down to undo the laces on his shoes and reaches for the slippers with his other hand, sets one of them down on the designated spot, puts his socked foot into the slipper and repeats the process.

Kiyoomi wrinkles his nose as the smell of Komori’s atrocious shower gel permeates the air. He’s been using it since high school and it’s never been a very pleasant smell in Kiyoomi’s opinion, but now, it makes him suppress the urge to gag. He can pick apart the different nuances of _Active Sport - Vivid Mountain Moisturising and Cooling Shower Gel for Men_ and he is not impressed.

“You need to stop using that horrible excuse for body-wash,” he tells him in lieu of an actual greeting. 

Kiyoomi criticising his choice in soap and hygiene products doesn’t exactly come as a surprise – he’s been doing that since they met. Komori straightens back up and looks at him, eyes warm, concern evident in them. “You seem… different.”

Kiyoomi purses his lips and starts walking into the direction of the kitchen. “Go change. I’ll make tea.”

The kettle whistles just as Komori emerges from the bathroom, wearing a fresh set of clothes and a smile on his face. Kiyoomi rolls his eyes when he sees a pair of tapered, gaudy yellow yoga pants and a grey shirt – it could be any colour, and he is afraid to find out what it is – combined with a cardigan, also grey. (He definitely does not have the same yoga pants in green, blue and an even more obnoxious yellow.)

“So, are you going to tell me what happened? And why is it so dark in here?”

“The light hurts my eyes,” he tells him, pouring the water into the teapot waiting on the tray and placing the infuser inside. Then he picks up the note and hands it to Komori wordlessly.

Komori walks over to the window and pulls the blinds aside to let some light through. He reads it, then reads it again. After staring at it for a minute, he asks, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There was a bag of blood in my fridge,” he says, taking out Komori’s mug from the cupboard and putting it on the tray before picking it up to carry it to the living room. Komori follows him wordlessly.

It’s unsettling how he can hear the hitch in his breath, the rapid beating of his heart in response to his statement. But he doesn’t question it, takes it at face value. There’s no second-guessing. Komori’s been at his side long enough to know that Kiyoomi wouldn’t joke about something as far-fetched as this.

Komori’s mouth opens a few times without any words leaving his lips before finally, he manages, “Are you trying to tell me you’re a–” 

“–Don’t say it. This is ridiculous enough as it is,” he says as he puts the tray down on the neon green coffee table. Komori spray-painted that himself, mainly to piss Kiyoomi off but joke’s on him: it’s his favourite piece of furniture, and only partly because of its colour. Right now, it’s comforting in this new, colourless world of his. Not that the lack of colour perception is his biggest problem. 

Komori sits down on the couch and scratches the back of his head. “So, uh. What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean.”

“Well, for one, the sun…”

He hadn’t considered that the sun might pose a problem other than hurting his eyes, but in most pieces of media, his kind is prone to be vulnerable to UV-rays. 

Kiyoomi furrows his brows and crosses the room to draw open the blinds, letting the sunlight in. He closes his eyes to shield them from the light and holds his hand out carefully, but nothing happens. Just to make sure, he opens the window and sticks his head outside, allowing the warmth of the sun’s rays to dance across his face. It’s not much different to what he remembers, yet somehow, it is. He keeps soaking up the light, and after a minute or so he realises his skin isn’t affected at all. It doesn’t feel any warmer, even though it definitely should. Almost like the rays aren’t piercing through his dermis at all, like they’re being blocked. 

Before he turns back to Komori, he closes the window and pulls the blinds shut, not eager to blind himself with the light. Only sparse rays of light shine through the holes, dipping the room into a comfortable dimness that’s both comfortable for his eyes and will allow Komori to see. 

He carries a deadpan expression on his face and an air of disaffection in his voice. “I suppose I can take sunscreen off my shopping list.”

Despite the strangeness of the situation, a chuckle escapes from Komori’s mouth. “Okay, okay, guess that’s just a myth, then.”

“Up until an hour ago, I thought _all of this_ ,” he says and gestures at his body, “was just a myth.”

“How did this even happen?

He narrows his eyes. “Well, it all started with _someone_ dragging me to a party. It seems I met someone who decided it would be a nice gesture to turn me into _this_.”

Not that he blames Komori. If anyone is to blame, it’s his stupidity that led to him agreeing to something a stranger offered him, and the stranger for offering it in the first place.

Komori averts his gaze, deciding instead to inspect the chip in the teapot. “I’m sorry, okay! But you can’t go through college without at least attending _one_ party!”

“If I had, I wouldn’t be like this now.”

Komori’s grin is strained, as is his voice when he offers, “It’s not that bad, though. I mean, according to myth, you’re basically invincible now.”

Kiyoomi takes a deep breath and is surprised to find it doesn’t do anything. The oxygen in the air doesn’t make a difference to him. Yes, his chest expands, air fills his lungs, but it’s not calming or anything it used to be before. It’s like he’s breathing underneath a blanket, with the difference that it doesn’t make him ache for clean air like it would have before. He hadn’t even realised that this is the first breath he’s taken since he drank the blood bag. 

“You sound like the cretin that did this.”

“Did they ask you for permission? What did you say?”

Kiyoomi rolls his eyes. “Considering I don’t remember the past three days or anything after meeting that guy, and I have an empty blood bag in my trash, the evidence points to me saying yes.”

Komori shrugs and pours himself some tea. He takes a sip, swallows and then asks, “What are you going to do about blood?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t you need it, to, you know, _survive_?”

Kiyoomi crosses his arms in front of his chest. “This is just… anaemia, a little to the left.”

Komori almost chokes on his tea. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“The way I see it, the consumption of blood is one way of replenishing low iron. And there are other ways to achieve that. Ways that don’t include me consuming someone else’s bodily fluids.”

“Ah,” Komori says. “Well, in case you change your mind about that, I’m here for you. There are probably ways to get blood that don’t include tapping the source. Hospitals, for example. They test the blood, you know. If it’s not up to standards, they probably get rid of it.”

“Still, the germs…”

“Kiyoomi,” he starts, “You know, you can’t get sick anymore.”

“That’s not how– it’s not–,” he takes another breath, as unnecessary as it is. “I don’t want someone else’s blood in me.” He shudders at the thought of having consumed the blood bag earlier. Never again, not if he can help it.

“Okay, okay, I get it. But, just so you know, you’re safe. There is nothing that can harm you, safe for a stake to the heart.” Komori scratches at his chin. “But considering the sunlight didn’t so much as tickle you, you’re probably safe from becoming a yakitori.”

“Hilarious.”

Komori has a look on his face that tells Kiyoomi he’s probably going to say something very stupid next. “Do you think you–”

“If you finish that sentence, I’m going to see how you hold up against a stake.”

He holds his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture, but there’s still a glint of mirth in his eyes that tells Kiyoomi he doesn’t mean it. “Okay, okay, I won’t say it, but– do you think you can?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t deign that with a response. The thought is too ludicrous to even consider.

“Let me know if you ever find out.”

“Get out of my apartment.”

“At least let me finish my tea first.”

Out of the kindness of his heart, he does let Komori finish his tea. But he kicks him out as soon as the cup is empty, promising to let him know if anything about his condition changes. He sends him off with a bag full of his perishable food because he’s reasonably certain he won’t have much use for it anymore and packs up the rest to donate to the shelter. Komori also reminds him to call the coach about missing practise and that he told him he was sick, nothing more, nothing less. 

Because Kiyoomi prefers staying inside, he sets up a monthly order of coconut-water and iron supplements to be delivered to his place. Why go outside when human interaction can be avoided through the wonders that the modern world offers? 

Unfortunately, he knows he can’t avoid going outside this time, because he has virtually no food– nutrition at home, so he puts on a jacket and a fresh mask and grabs his backpack and the bag of food and leaves the apartment to go to the shelter, where he leaves it with the receptionist. Then he goes to the convenience store a block down the street to buy himself a stock of coconut water and orange juice and makes a stop at the pharmacy for supplements. Strangely, he barely feels the weight of the bottles in his bag. 

He also decides to buy some noise-cancelling headphones and stock the kits that he keeps at the bottom of his bags – yes, plural – with single-use earplugs. All the noise he can suddenly make out is very distracting and irritating on a molecular level. 

The fact that he can barely see anything because it’s so bright prompts him to seek out an optometrist about his newfound light sensitivity and limited visual perception concerning colours and objects that are too close to his face. It’s almost too easy to get a prescription for tinted glasses that reduce the strain that light puts on his eyes, and he manages to convince him to give him lenses as well. He isn’t going to play volleyball with pink glasses on.

When he’s back home, he throws out every article of clothing with colours he can’t discern. He ends up with a wardrobe of mostly yellow, green, and blue. This is an incentive to shop for more clothes if he’s ever had one. 

He calls his therapist to figure out a way to function around people now that he knows with indisputable certainty that he’s safe from harmful substances because he still shudders at the thought of letting anyone get close to him. And he doesn’t want to keep the people important to him an arm’s length away. Not if he doesn’t have to. Because he can’t remember the last time he was hugged, but he can remember the last time he wished he was. It’s not that he doesn’t want physical touch, it’s the thought of people touching him that makes him feel like hives are breaking out on his skin. Maybe he can start small. _Two steps forward, one step back is still one step forward._ At some point, he’ll reach his goal, even if it’ll be slow-going. He’ll get acclimated to it. 

But mostly, he moves on with his life. He’s not going to pretend that this is a terrible fate that’s befallen him, because it’s not. Immune to sickness, blessed with superior reflexes? Kiyoomi won the jackpot. All he has to do is figure out a way to keep up his iron levels. And he lives in modern times. He doesn’t have to resort to violently murdering people to get blood for iron. He just needs to go to the pharmacy.

Life is good. Kiyoomi is good.

Then, because deep, deep down, he is nothing more than a highly functioning idiot, he signs on with the Black Jackals.

* * *

Three months into the ordeal that is now his life, Kiyoomi notices a difference. Okay, maybe he noticed it a little earlier. It’s just– things have been progressively getting worse over the past month or so. He’s been trying to shove it under the rug, pretend everything is fine. He’s still breathing– so to speak.

It’s also raining outside, which is the main reason he’s in a mood. He’s never much liked rain, not as a human and definitely not now.

Back when he had normal problems, like Japanese Lit tests and seeing Wakatoshi at Nationals for the first time – in person – rain was a nuisance. It meant more people were on public transport, the ground was wet and disgusting and the chances of getting stabbed with an umbrella skyrocketed. 

The thing is– he can feel the change of pressure in the atmosphere right before the downpour, can smell the water and all of the things it contains, and it’s not pretty. If he didn’t have a reason not to leave the house before, he certainly does now. 

But– and he doesn’t know why, doesn’t know how it happened, maybe it’s always been like that. Maybe, back in high school, it was easier to ignore because he was usually cranky from the puddles on his way home and worn out from practise. He didn’t have the energy to focus on that particular problem because he was trying to tear his skin off just thinking about the possibility of getting his shoes wet and dirty and dragging water into the house.

For some reason, whenever it rains he just gets– 

It’s like he’s going out of his skin with _need_. And it just gets worse afterwards, when the rain stops and the clouds clear and he can smell petrichor and he just–

He wants and he hates that he wants because–

God, he hates the scent that rain leaves in the air because–

It makes him think of horrible hair and weak insults and a grating voice and smug smiles. Mustard hair and a jawline that demands to be punched, maroon tracksuits that would look better torn up and on the floor. It makes him feel a tingling in his spine, a warmth in his stomach, a simmering heat that floods his veins and makes it hard to focus on anything else.

The first time it rained after he changed, he tore a hole in his mattress. And splintered the bed frame. Very nearly punched a hole into his wall, too, which would have just been awkward because his neighbour is a very nice old lady and– she doesn’t need to see _that_.

So when he hears the soft tapping of raindrops against his window, he wishes he could just go to bed and sleep. He’s been aching for a nap lately anyway. 

He sits up in his bed, spares a glance outside, sees the sky is dreary and grey and covered in clouds. The rain patters pitifully down, staining the asphalt and creating puddles on the uneven street. Raindrops are racing down the windowpane, water pooling on the sill outside. He groans, not looking forward to the rest of this day. 

It’s been building for a month, slowly, steadily, but since waking up to _this_ , he actually feels _tired_ again. Tired like he used to feel before all this happened, yet in a completely different vein. The fatigue sits deep in his bones, hidden in the depths of his marrow. It’s like he’s on the ocean floor, fighting tooth and nail against the force of the water just to take a step forward. His limbs are heavy weights, arms dangling at his sides like they’re encased in blocks of cement.

When he goes to pick up the new shipment of coconut water and supplement pills that was delivered to his door, his muscles protest and he barely manages to heave the package inside before his knees buckle and he falls to the floor. Just a month ago, he had effortlessly lifted one end of his sofa with one arm to vacuum underneath it. 

He slumps into the kitchen, pulls the mortar and pestle from the cupboard and drops double the amount of iron supplement pills into it before crushing them. The blender is already sitting out on the counter, waiting to be filled with coconut water and the powder. 

Pressing the button to mix the two of them together makes a sound that reverberates in his ears, but it’s no worse than it’s always been when he used to make smoothies before he went on a run in the morning. This should perhaps worry him a lot more than it does.

Drinking the concoction is as dissatisfying as baking a cake and only getting to smell it before you drop it off at a friend’s. Not that Kiyoomi has ever in his life baked a cake for himself or someone else, other than Komori. But he always let him have a slice before stuffing his face with it.

The pasty residue the drink leaves in his mouth makes him abandon the kitchen in favour of brushing his teeth. He sees his reflection in the mirror and is met with a shadow of himself. It was already bad yesterday and the week before. It’s been slowly getting worse over the past month, but somehow, a lot can change within twenty-four hours.

His skin, while it had always been fair, is looking even paler, almost translucent. Gently, he touches a finger to his cheek, almost afraid of tearing it. The white pallor highlights what he knows must be a violet hue around his sunken eye-sockets and on his lids. They’re not quite dark circles, but rather two black eyes that are slowly healing, only instead of getting lighter, the colour has been darkening with every day that’s passed. 

He barely tastes the minty toothpaste, doesn’t pay attention to the fang-like canines that took permanent residence in his mouth about two weeks ago. He rinses his mouth carefully, spits out the Listerine and throws the toothbrush into the bin next to the cabinet. 

Ridiculously, it all makes him feel soberingly human. He hasn’t decided yet whether or not that’s a good thing. 

The doorbell rings, shaking him out of his reverie. Vaguely, he recalls not having needed a doorbell in months.

Kiyoomi skulks to the entrance and pulls open the door to reveal Komori, who is not at all impressed. He shoulders past him and makes quick work of taking off his shoes and putting on his designated slippers, not bothering to set down the bags he’s carrying. 

“You look like a goddamn corpse,” he tells him and doesn’t even give him a chance to respond before he saunters down the hallway and into the kitchen. It’s a testament to their friendship that he doesn’t complain about the darkness of Kiyoomi’s apartment and that he finds his way down the hallway without bumping into anything.

Clearly, he’s a man on a mission, and if that mission is to take place in his home, Kiyoomi decides it’s only wise to follow him. He’s been avoiding Komori’s calls and suggestions of having him come over for two weeks now, not eager to have his one and only friend see him like this, a shadow of his former self. 

“I’m putting my foot down,” he says, leaning against the kitchen counter, the shoulder bag sitting at his side, his backpack on the ground at his feet. His eyebrows are pinched in a way that could put Kiyoomi’s to shame. 

“Wh–”

He gestures vaguely with his hand, cutting through the air and any pretence as to what this is about. “This whole ‘no blood’ schtick you’ve got going is stupid, if not borderline suicidal.”

Kiyoomi purses his lips. “The germs–” He knows his argument is weak, but it’s the only one he has. And Komori is right. He feels himself fading, going numb. His toes are, impossibly, cold in two pairs of socks that he shouldn’t need, that he hasn’t needed – but still wore – in months. Must be the circulation or something. It’s hard to pump blood when there’s almost none left in the body. Doubly so when there’s no heartbeat. 

By some miracle, Komori’s expression sours further. Is that what Kiyoomi looks like when he’s vaguely inconvenienced? “Germs are the least of your problems. Just– have you given any thought to what I said? Hospitals keep a supply of blood on hand, and you know they wouldn’t accept any that isn’t clean.” He turns slightly and opens the bag, revealing–

Kiyoomi’s feels icy disgust dropping into the bottom of his stomach, swirling like liquid nitrogen, curling around his insides like smoke, freezing them upon touch. Swallowing dryly, the spit he didn’t know he could still produce – is it even spit? It tastes too bitter for that – is like cheap whiskey against his throat, a liquid heat, acridly pungent. 

–a blood bag.

“Put that away,” he says, unable to avert his eyes from the dark liquid. His throat is burning, aching, screaming for him to sink his teeth into it, heat spreading down and outwards, not yet aflame but it’s only a matter of time. He’d gladly burn up if only to rid himself of the cloying cold that’s making his hands shake. He balls them into fists, but he can’t do anything about the whole-body shiver that goes through him, the trembling that won’t stop. 

He finds himself on the receiving end of a glare that makes him wonder if perhaps Komori is part-gorgon. “No. You’re going to drink it. I’m not leaving before you do.”

He makes a face. Komori narrows his eyes further. 

“The–”

“Kiyoomi!” he bellows, hitting his fist against the countertop. “This is the cleanest blood you’re going to find in a five-mile radius. You need it! Don’t be such a baby about this!” 

It’s hard to argue with Komori on a good day, and even more difficult when he doesn’t let him get a word in edgewise. Not that it’s easy to speak when every word feels like swallowing pieces of glass. 

A spark finds the heat and a fire ignites in his veins, the only thing alive in him, and ironically, he thinks it’s going to burn what is left of him if he doesn’t get his hands on that damn bag that he doesn’t want. “I– the–” he croaks.

Komori takes a step towards him, and in turn, Kiyoomi takes a step back, the edge of the counter digging into the small of his back. Funny how the guy without the fangs is the more intimidating one. “I understand that you’re worried about the germs, okay. I get it, I do. But you’re also not an idiot. You know that you need this, you must have looked into a mirror recently!”

Kiyoomi clenches his jaw shut. The metallic taste in the air is getting stronger. There are flames, licking at his insides, feeding the searing, scorching, blistering heat that paralyses him on the spot. It’s almost comforting. He’d gladly give himself over to it if only to escape the cold.

Komori sighs. “There’s only one other option you have that’s not drinking blood, but who knows how effective that’ll be.” He takes another bag out of the cooler, similar to the one containing the blood, with the inscription _Venofer_. From his backpack, he retrieves a bottle that says _Fer-in-Sol_. He holds them out for Kiyoomi to take, which he does.

Both are common medications used for treating anaemia, geared towards aiding the body in replenishing the iron it’s lacking. The issue is whether or not the medications can hold up against the ichor in his veins. Whether they’ll work at all. It might eat them up before they can take effect.

Trouble is, they’re prescription-only medications. Which begs the question, “How did you get these?”

Komori waves him off, “The security at the hospital pharmacy is really shit.”

Kiyoomi’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, forming two arches. “You robbed a hospital?”

Komori ignores him and moves on with his little presentation. Clearly, he prepared a whole speech. “What you said about _this_ ,” he gestures at Kiyoomi, “being no worse than anaemia, I figured… there has to be some kind of treatment for the more severe cases.” He grins. “I’m guessing intravenous injection won’t work, but you could still drink it, right?”

Kiyoomi shrugs. It’s his only option. Needles won’t pierce through his skin, it’s too durable. 

“Let’s try this. No idea if it’ll help. If it doesn’t, you’re drinking the blood, okay? I’ll hold you down if I have to.”

“No, I– Let’s try the drugs first.”

Komori narrows his eyes, going so far as to step even closer, this time on his tiptoes to look in his eyes. “Kiyoomi! I am not going to lose my best friend to idiocy, okay? You will drink the goddamn fucking blood if this medication is useless. I have a few bags in the cooler, it comes to about six litres total.”

Kiyoomi knows that he had already lost that fight before it had even started.

The trepidation, the sheer, unadulterated, nauseating feeling that curls coldly in his abdomen, the ice spreading to his chest at the thought of consuming the blood– Fire has always been stronger than ice, and before it can freeze his veins and settle in his bones, the flames lick away at it, melting away at the fear, the disgust and– It’s pleasantly warm in his chest, in his veins, in his bones. There’s no eagerness, no excitement, just– calmness. Tranquil acceptance. The disgust is not gone, it never will be, but it’s manageable. It’s the fire that makes it bearable; because the fear might still be there, but the desire is stronger, overrides it, even if just for a moment.

He’s done pretending he doesn’t _want_ the blood; he _does_. So much. And logically, he knows that it’s as clean as it can be. The fear is a mere ice cube among the stifling flames. So he– he gives in. He’s still holding out hope for the meds to work. Maybe he doesn’t have to drink it, even though he wants to. He hopes he won’t have to.

“Where did you get it?”

Now, Komori decides to look sheepish, taking a step back and rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Did you know that they’re doing a blood drive down at the community centre?”

Kiyoomi’s eyes nearly fall out of his head. Robbing a hospital, stealing blood? He’s seeing a whole new side of Komori. He doesn’t know if he likes it. “You _what_? How–”

“Okay, so I had some help. I ran into Su–”

Kiyoomi shakes his head, “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to be an accessory to your crimes.”

Komori grins, waving the bag around in front of his face. He knows he’s won. He probably knew before he even came here. “You’re drinking this if the meds don’t work.”

“That’s not– fine! I’ll put on the game I recorded yesterday,” he says and puts the drugs down on the counter. He leaves Komori in the kitchen to do whatever with them. 

He hears him pouring coconut water and what has to be the medication into the blender and turning it on. There’s also the freezer opening, which must mean Komori is putting the blood in there for the time being. 

And that’s how Kiyoomi finds himself in his living room, holding a glass of Venofer mixed with coconut water and Fer-in-Sol and staring at a frozen tv-screen, Komori grinning like he won the jackpot at his side. 

He’s sitting cross-legged on his couch, which is something he started doing only after his change because the strain it would put on his knees was no longer a problem that he had to deal with. “I hate you,” he grumbles into the glass. It smells horribly sweet. 

“Please, you’d crash and burn without me. Drink the drugs, Kiyoomi.”

He doesn’t know what he expected, but he shouldn’t be surprised by the viscous, syrupy taste of the cocktail that Komori mixed together. It’s a concoction from hell, is what it is. He’s starting to feel a little better, though. There’s less pressure on his limbs, for one, and the burning in his throat has been soothed. For now.

“So,” Komori starts in a tone that makes the hairs at the back of Kiyoomi’s neck stand up, “Is that the game with a certain setter that you don’t want to admit you have a crush on?”

When he glances at him from the corner of his eye, he sees him smirk knowingly.

“I do not,” he starts, glaring venomously at his best friend, “have a crush on Miya.”

“Please,” Komori scoffs, grabbing his empty glass to refill it and handing it back to Kiyoomi, “You are more smitten than you were when you first met Ushijima, and that’s saying something. You nearly fell over yourself trying to impress that stoic glare off his face.”

Seeing Ushijima, live and in-person in his first year, was– an experience. He can feel the echo of his heart pounding in his chest when he thinks back to that moment. In retrospect, he can admit that he was probably in love with him for all of his first and most of his second year. 

Which– had been fine, great even. It was safe. Because he was under no delusion that anything would ever come of it. So he could just quietly watch him be Japan’s greatest southpaw canon, and work towards beating him someday.

Very convincingly, he says, “I did not.”

“You whined the whole time at Nationals in second year because ‘that brat-setter from Karasuno ruined your chances of _beating Wakatoshi_ ’.”

Kiyoomi decidedly does not pout, choosing instead to drink more of the concoction and pressing play on the laptop that’s hooked up to the tv. 

“Can you turn up the volume?”

For a moment, he debates leaving it on the lowest setting, just to spite Komori, but considering he risked going to jail for him today, Kiyoomi figures he owes him.

They’re thirty minutes into the match, right at set point for Miya’s team when Komori leans over and plucks the remote from where it’s resting next to Kiyoomi’s hand and presses pause. “What do you see in him, anyway?”

Kiyoomi glares, but it barely holds any heat. “There’s nothing to see because I don’t like him.”

Komori rolls his eyes. “Okay, level with me for a moment. We’re in first year, at Nationals, and you willingly watch Shiratorizawa play from the stands because you ‘don’t have a crush on Wakatoshi’. Then, the next year, you pout _all goddamn day_ because Karasuno beat Inarizaki and you ‘didn’t get a chance to wipe that smug smile off that jerk’s face’, and I’m quoting you verbatim there, Kiyoomi. I mean, I get it– the guy’s a bit of a douche on the best of days, so you wouldn’t exactly be keen on admitting that you like him, but don’t you always pride yourself on the fact that you’re a realist?”

“He’s…” Kiyoomi groans, gulps down another glass, making the ache in his bones and the weight on his limbs start to dissipate. He rolls his right shoulder, trying to soothe a phantom ache. Miya wasn’t even here and he was driving him up the wall. “He’s infuriatingly smug, his hair is atrocious and he tries so hard–”

“–How did this happen? You’ve talked to each other, what, a total of two times? Yet somehow, you’re head over heels for him.”

“I am not _head over heels_ ,” he protests. 

Komori chuckles, “Yeah, you are. You got that little smile on your face whenever the camera shows him.”

Kiyoomi crosses his arms, scowling at the tv. He definitely doesn’t smile because of Miya.

“Don’t pout. I think it’s adorable. You want to date him so bad.”

That’s something he won’t even let himself think about. How is he supposed to date anyone, being like he is? It took him years of therapy to even let other people get close enough to become friends with them, and one agonising year of weekly appointments to allow Komori into his apartment. The fact that Komori’s not wearing a mask is making his skin itch. It is but a dull sensation, almost easy to ignore now that he knows he’s not in any danger of Komori spreading his germs to Kiyoomi. But germs can’t hurt him anymore. People still can. 

“He’s the type of guy who probably wears jeans at home.”

“And that’s a dealbreaker for you?”

“Only psychopaths do that, Toya.”

Komori snorts. Then, he throws in the non-sequitur of, “He had a... thing with Karasuno’s number ten for some of his third year, you know.” What’s the point of telling him this? Is he trying to make him jealous to prove something?

“He what?”

“Yeah,” he says, “Remember I exchanged numbers with Kageyama at the training camp? He told me when it happened. Or, well, he kind of complained about it. I told him he should tell Hinata how he feels if it bothers him so much, and– well, last I heard is that he didn’t, but Hinata and Miya's... thing ended after a few months.”

“It’s not like I’m ever going to see him again,” Kiyoomi says, trying to squash his disappointment. He doesn’t even want to see him again, or his smug face, cocksure grin, glinting eyes.

Komori’s laugh sounds hollow in his ears, “You can only hope.”

* * *

Foolishly, Kiyoomi thinks that signing a contract with a team that boasts Miya Atsumu as their setter is the only stupid decision he’s ever made. A decision that he made after long bouts over overthinking and over-analysing, a decision he did not make lightly. 

Like every time he had to make a decision between two or more things, he opened a blank document and created a pro-and-cons list for each Division 1 team that he’s interested in joining. It’s what he did for his high school, for his college, for the subject he majored in and everything else in his life. He’s not going to base his decision on anything but a clear assessment of everything and anything the teams have to offer. 

Some are removed as possible choices because they’re too far away, others because they have their training facility in a climate that doesn’t agree with Kiyoomi’s hair. One of them falls out of the running when he asks Komori about the colour of their jersey. 

Despite all of his critical analysis, the team he ends up with is the Black Jackals, because the only negative they can boast is that their setter is none other than Miya Atsumu. By all means, this should have been a deterrent. Alarm bells were going off in his head, telling him to choose another team, any team that didn’t have _him_.

But for a reason that Kiyoomi does not want to consider too deeply, this doesn’t make him shy away. It should have, for his sanity alone. Miya has been driving him crazy since he crashed into him and has continued doing so even after their paths diverged after the last tournament in high school. 

Ever since meeting him, his life has been a continuous stream of very unlucky incidents that have bled into a veritable sea of regret in which he finds himself, with no hopes of swimming back to the shore. In short, everything that is wrong with his life can (and will be) be attributed to making the acquaintance of Miya Atsumu. Is that petty? Possibly.

Is joining the same team as him the biggest, most idiotic thing he has ever done? Probably. 

Not as stupid as moving into the same building as him, though.

In anticipation of joining the Black Jackals, he had been looking for apartments close to the team’s training facility. Lo and behold, he finds a listing for a one-bedroom apartment with good access to public transport, a convenience store nearby and in walking distance to the training facility the team used. The offer was truly miraculous. He really should have been a bit more suspicious about the low rent.

It turns out that the windows are paper thin and don’t block out any sounds, which means that he has to live with the cacophony of car horns and ambulance sirens as permanent background noise. Once again, he’s glad that he doesn’t need sleep. It’s not a problem that can’t be fixed with ear-plugs and determination. The sounds are far away enough to tune them out.

If only that would solve the issue with his next-door neighbour. 

He must have angered several powerful gods, spirits or other creatures in a past life because his neighbour turns out to be none other than Miya Atsumu, perpetual thorn in his side.

Now, this wouldn’t pose much of an issue if it weren’t for Kiyoomi’s hearing. He has long since mastered the art of ignoring people, but what’s establishing itself as an irritable constant, Miya Atsumu is the exception. 

He is loud.

Kiyoomi doesn’t sleep, but he does like to lie in his very comfortable (and completely unnecessary) bed from time to time. If he focuses, he can enter a meditative state reminiscent of sleep. His body doesn’t require to be replenished with energy, but after the stress of the move and joining a new team and finding out he’s going to live next to _him_ for the foreseeable future, his mind is in dire need of some relaxation.

So there he is, in the early morning hours, lying on his bed in his softest pyjamas. Outside, the sky is bleeding from a dark purple into a soft pink, the world slowly waking up. A sole moped drives down the street, but none of it matters, because moments later, his carefully crafted peace is disturbed. 

An alarm shrills from the other side of the too-thin wall, blaring like a siren in an atomic power plant. Kiyoomi’s eyes snap open in shock, thinking the nuclear apocalypse has started. 

The alarm does not stop. It goes on for five more minutes until finally, mercifully, it quits its screeching. 

What follows is a yawn that sounds like a man possessed or a siren shrieking. Kiyoomi has half a mind to call a priest. Then two feet hit the hardwood floor and take a few steps to what Kiyoomi knows is the adjoining bathroom, since all the apartments have the same floor-plan. The sound of the shower turning on is easy to tune out. 

What’s not is the slap of plastic slippers against the floor, the thumping of footsteps that are way louder than they need to be. It’s like he’s putting all his effort into making them as heavy as possible, with no regard for Kiyoomi’s sensitive hearing. 

It gets worse when he reaches the kitchen, and subsequently, tiled floor. If that weren’t enough, he turns on the radio. First, all that comes out is static until he adjusts the knob and reaches a station that is playing the greatest hits from ten years ago. A throwback to the music that used to play on every radio when Kiyoomi was in middle-school – which he didn’t like then and definitely doesn’t like now – is apparently not the worst thing. No, the coup de grâce is him singing along, loudly and completely off-key, because he is not only inconsiderate but also tone-deaf. 

Kiyoomi resigns himself to not getting any peace of mind today and gets out of bed. He grabs fresh clothing out of his dresser and goes to the bathroom to take a shower. It’s not entirely necessary, because he doesn’t produce sweat anymore, but it’s always been part of his routine and the thought of going through a day with dust particles and _other things_ sticking to his skin is nausea-inducing. Smelling fresh and cleaning his hair is an added bonus. He brushes his teeth, though he has to be careful not to put too much pressure on his gums, lest he ruins yet another toothbrush with his fangs. 

His skin care routine is next. The exfoliator doesn’t exactly work on his skin – it’s much too durable for that – but it helps remove residual grime and dust and germs that he didn’t get in the shower. He puts on a toner simply because – it may smell like rosewater and he may or may not like that smell – and then, in an act of vanity, futile as it might be, moisturiser. 

When he gets to the kitchen, his horrible, no-good neighbour is just finishing his rendition of _Bleeding Love_. Kiyoomi’s eyes roll so hard, he fears for a second they’re attempting to detach from the optic nerve.

He’s cooking breakfast with way too many spices. Kiyoomi wrinkles his nose when he smells another dose of dashi being added. In no way, shape or form is this concoction going to taste good. It might not even be edible at this point. For some reason, he’s also frying fish that he all but drowned in garlic oil. The garlic bothers Kiyoomi for one simple reason: it smells absolutely horrible. And he used so much it’s like Kiyoomi had his head dunked into a bowl full of it.

To add insult to injury, he’s also doing a horrible dance routine, if his mismatched footsteps are anything to go by. From what Kiyoomi can tell, he messes up the choreography of whatever dance he’s attempting to imitate in increasingly atrocious ways. It’s a miracle he hasn’t dropped the pan yet.

Kiyoomi grabs a pair of ear-plugs out of the kitchen drawer to make this morning at least somewhat bearable and mixes a bottle of coconut water and iron capsules in the blender before heading to the living room. It’s almost time to get some nutrition into him again. Hopefully, Komori will swing by his place before his next match. The stock of coconut water will tide him over, but sooner or later he’s going to need the sucrose again unless he wants to look like a walking corpse. That might worry his teammates.

He makes himself comfortable on his couch – a two-seater, antimicrobial, canary yellow for the simple reason that Komori insisted it was a horrible colour, especially considering that the apartment had a green feature wall in the living room – and opens his laptop. It doesn’t take long for it to wake up and he presses play on the volleyball game he was watching yesterday. 

The volume is on the lowest setting, for two reasons. One, Kiyoomi doesn’t much care for the overly excited and exaggerated commentary. Two, he has no trouble hearing it. He could be on the roof of the building and all he’d have to do to make out the sound was focus on the sound of volleyballs and yelling.

Today is the last practise before the debut game as one of the rookie members of the Black Jackals. He’d have liked to get some rest, but thanks to his poor decision-making skills, he chose the only apartment in the entire _city_ that had Miya Atsumu on the other side of its walls. 

It seems he’s finished preparing breakfast at last. The music is still going, but hopefully, his mouth will be too preoccupied with chewing for him to sing along, though Kiyoomi wouldn’t put it past him to try. 

He’s just taking the last sip of his ‘breakfast’ when there’s a knock on his apartment door. 

Dread washes over him, not unlike that time two years ago. Only now, it’s worse. Because he knows, he _knows_ it’s Miya on the other side of the door. And by the garlicky smell wafting through the wood of his front door, he’s carrying a plate of whatever horrible meal he’s prepared. 

For a second, Kiyoomi debates whether he should pretend not to be home. This thought is immediately discarded because it’s seven thirty in the morning and Miya would have heard him leaving his apartment. 

He pauses the game on his laptop and decidedly not-skulks to the entrance. 

His annoyance prevents him from pretending to be surprised at the sight of Miya Atsumu standing in front of his door.

Miya has not taken the time to style his hair – which is now a less obnoxious colour that doesn’t remind Kiyoomi of expired mustard – nor to put on appropriate clothing. He’s wearing a robe that is very poorly tied, a threadbare t-shirt that might as well be see-through – Kiyoomi did not need to know that his nipples were pierced, thank you very much – and, much to Kiyoomi’s horror, tight black briefs that hide absolutely nothing and make his thighs look good enough to bite. Not that they need any help in that department. 

He takes a deep breath through his nose. The smell of garlic and dashi hits him first, followed by the scent of Miya’s body wash and shampoo. Of course he would use something pretentious that made him smell like a whole damn forest and– he smells like rain, somehow? 

Kiyoomi will not get a boner right now. 

“Heya, Kiyoomi,” he says, a cocksure grin plastered on his face. 

Kiyoomi’s fingers twitch. Hearing his first name from Miya Atsumu of all people, in a still-sleep-rough voice that sounds both grating and sinful is not something he thought he needed, but what’s another thing on the list he’s been wrong about? He does not acknowledge the fact that every item on the list in some way concerns the jerk standing in front of him.

“I did not give you permission to call me that.” He definitely doesn’t want him saying his name in that voice again.

His expression doesn’t falter, but his eyes take on a nasty glint. “Sakusa’s kinda a mouthful, don'tcha think?”

“This could be avoided if you didn’t speak to me.”

He laughs because somehow he thinks that Kiyoomi is making a joke. “Figured y’ain’t got any food,” he says, like this would explain why he’s wielding a veritable bio-weapon in the form of a bowl containing rice and fried fish.

Kiyoomi isn’t totally ignorant. If Miya had used less than two gallons of garlic oil and what seems like two cloves of garlic, he might appreciate the gesture. He still wouldn’t accept the food, for the simple fact that it was prepared by another person and that he can’t digest it. He had tried to eat normal food after he changed, hoping to disprove his own theory, but all it did was make him regurgitate chewed up pieces of it, completely undigested. As it is, the smell alone makes him want to swan-dive out of the window into the bed of the garbage truck that’s approaching their building right now. 

Also, he definitely doesn’t trust Miya’s motivations. Why would he give him food? He has to have ulterior motives. He’s not fooling anyone with his ‘nice neighbour’ act, least of all him. He would have had better luck if he hadn’t subjected Kiyoomi to his horrible sing-along just minutes earlier. 

Kiyoomi spares a glance at the monstrosity on a plate. “I’m allergic.”

“Y’don’t even know what kinda ingredients I used!”

He gives him a pointed look. “Garlic.”

“Allergic to garlic, huh?” He tilts his head to the side just so, fixing him with a suspicious gaze, making Kiyoomi’s skin prickle. “What are ya, a vampire?” 

Kiyoomi rolls his eyes. “Yes.” He looks him directly in the eyes when he goes on to say, “Garlic, my weakness. Please, spare me,” in a perfect deadpan.

“Fine, but don’t say I ain’t ever done anythin’ fer ya, Omi-Omi,” he concedes. Kiyoomi wasn’t aware he had the skill-set. 

Kiyoomi places one hand on the door, ready to close it at a moment’s notice. “Don’t make that noise.”

His lips quirk into a smirk. “See ya later. We should walk to practise together, Omi-Omi.”

“Ew,” is the only response that comes to mind, but it seems to do the trick. 

Miya’s mouth falls open in outrage, revealing bared teeth and stretching his face comically. His eyebrows draw up and together on his forehead, creating a furrow in the space between them. 

Kiyoomi closes the door in his ridiculous face, not keen on listening to his indignant screech.

Naively, he thinks that’ll be the end of it. In accordance with every assumption concerning Miya Atsumu, he’s proven wrong that very same day.

—

Despite his best efforts, attempting to sneak out of the apartment without Miya noticing is a futile endeavour. He has barely taken a step out into the hallway when the door a little further down opens and Miya steps out. 

“Heya, Omi-Omi,” he says and has the nerve to wave at him.

“We’re not walking together.”

“Whaddya wan’ me t’do, wait till the las’ minute an’ be late?”

“Leave me alone,” he grumbles and walks to the stairwell.

Miya, of course, does the exact opposite and follows him. The only silver lining is that at least he’s wearing clothes now. The Black Jackals tracksuit is loose and covers up his obscene legs, but does nothing to dispel the image that is now permanently etched into Kiyoomi’s mind, the sight of his bare thighs just begging him to sink his teeth into them, mark them up, draw a little blood–

–He’d like to pretend that he doesn’t care, but he does. He cares a ridiculous amount about Miya’s thighs, actually. He desperately wishes he didn’t, but he was cursed with a propensity for appreciating muscular legs. And Miya’s legs are a work of art begging to be pinned to a wall and framed for posterity, preserved in its pristine state next to the Mona Lisa and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. Yet at the same time, Kiyoomi has the urge to rake his nails against them and add new colours with his mouth and teeth, paint a picture with his tongue, leave his fingerprints on the canvas.

These thoughts he’s having, about his thighs– they need to stop, especially when the owner of said thighs is walking right next to him. He’s glad for his mask that’s hiding the upturned corners of his mouth, glad that he doesn’t have the ability to blush because he’s sure it would give him away. 

Since when is Kiyoomi such a mess around him? It’s like he’s seventeen again, barely managing to keep his dick soft at nationals in his third year, when he happened to see Miya during warm-up. Miya, wearing a jersey with the number 1 on it, face a little less chubby, jawline a lot more prominent, shoulders broader. Still wearing the cocksure smile, but at least he had something to back it up with. And thighs that Kiyoomi had to force himself not to imagine wrapped around his head. 

But those things– they were inconsequential. The physical side of _this_ , Kiyoomi had accepted – albeit begrudgingly – sometime between All-Japan Youth and the Interhigh. The emotional aspect, that was a little harder to make peace with. 

Miya had, of course, ruined his musings by yelling at some first-year on his team, but it had been a welcome distraction. 

The reminder that the only thing Miya has going for himself are his thighs comes with his incessant and irritating chatter that does not cease all the way from their apartment building to the training facility. 

He’s talking for the sake of making noise, which Kiyoomi is intimately aware he is unnaturally good at and to drive Kiyoomi to insanity. With how things are going, he’s not going to have to wait very long. 

Kiyoomi could probably snap his neck if he were so inclined, but then he’d get Miya’s germs all over himself, and he really doesn’t want to have to skip practise to bury a body. 

When they arrive at the facility, Kiyoomi wonders what on earth had made him choose this team. Right, he didn’t want to have to wear a red jersey.

Miya is bad enough, but couple him with Bokuto and Hinata, two of the loudest and most energetic dumbasses he knows, and he has a recipe for disaster. All he needs is to add water and wait a few minutes, and voila, instant chaos.

But unlike an undesired cup of ramen, he cannot flush his teammates down the toilet, no matter how much he wants to. It’d be a disservice to the rest of the population. Who knows what kind of stupidity might be unleashed if they got into the water supply.

Against all odds, practise goes fine. Bokuto seems to have learned how to keep his emotions from interfering with his game-play, which is refreshing. While his dejected episodes made playing against him easier – and more amusing – in high school, Kiyoomi doesn’t think it’ll be very helpful now that he’s on the same team as him. 

Hinata is a blur in his memory. All he can recall is seeing him stumble around in a fever-drunk state in the arena during Karasuno’s game against Kamomedai. But now, he’s… different. The aura around him has somehow gotten bigger. He’s not stupid enough to underestimate him.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of squawking going on in the locker room. 

Bokuto is excitedly showing Hinata his necklace. Instead of a standard pendant, it has a golden ring. When Bokuto tilts it this way and that, Kiyoomi catches a glimpse of the inscription: _protagonist of the world._

He’s glad he lost the ability to throw up two years ago. How disgustingly romantic.

He is convinced it can’t get any sappier, but Hinata counters with showing off a necklace of his own, complete with a button as its sole pendant. Apparently, he’d gotten it from his setter after graduation, just before he left for Brazil. 

Idly, he wishes he had the ability to get drunk enough – or drunk at all – so that might forget all of that.

Meanwhile, Miya is doing a very poor job of silently stewing in the corner. Kiyoomi hears him muttering something about _goddamn goody-two-shoes_. It sounds an awful lot like jealousy.

He hadn’t thought that Miya still carried that torch for Hinata and that he had gotten over his little high school infatuation. But his track record shows he’s always wrong when it comes to Miya Atsumu. 

He ignores the bitter taste that realisation leaves in his mouth. He does not care whether or not Miya still has a crush on Hinata. 

Truthfully, he’s never understood why everybody has been falling ass over head for this kid. He’s heard so much about him, people gushing over him left and right, and he just doesn’t get it? Why is everyone drawn to him like moths to a flame? They act like he’s the sun and they’d do anything to get close enough, uncaring or perhaps unaware that they will burn up in his presence. 

What he does care about is getting home and away from the noise and the smell of the locker room. He hasn’t gotten used to the particular odour in here yet, and it’ll take some time for his nose to be able to ignore all the… nuances. 

Unfortunately, he can’t get around Miya’s presence. 

Like an irritating, rabid dog that won’t stop barking every time he sees a bike – only the bike is Kiyoomi – he follows him home. Granted, they live in the same building, but is it too much to ask for Miya to have some basic human decency and wait around in the cold before he goes home so that Kiyoomi might have some peace and quiet?

Not that he’s going to get that back at the apartment. Miya is probably going to play music loudly _again_ and attempt to sing along _again_ and drive Kiyoomi absolutely insane _again_.

They’re on the first flight of stairs when Miya drops a truly ingenious suggestion. “Hey, Omi-Omi, y’wanna come over an’ have a beer?”

Kiyoomi would sooner shave his head or put on Miya’s sweaty jersey. That probably smells like him. What might that entail? He’s not going down that road.

He chooses his go-to response he uses whenever food or drink is concerned. “I’m allergic.”

“To what, beer? Yer gotta be kiddin’ me, Omi-Omi.”

“You shouldn’t be drinking during game-season,” he says as he steps onto the landing for their floor.

“A beer ain’t gonna hurt.”

Kiyoomi raises an eyebrow at him. “Being cocky has never done you any favours before.”

“Yeah, name one time,” he challenges, undoubtedly wearing a cocksure grin on his face.

Kiyoomi unlocks the door to his apartment, too aware of the fact that Miya is standing right behind him. “Nationals, second year,” he says and pushes the door open. 

“Uncalled for,” he barks.

“Maybe next time,” Kiyoomi says, slowly closing the door, “Don't pick up the phone.”

The corners of his mouth don’t quirk up when he hears the indignant _Yer a piece'a work, Omi_ from the other side of the door. 

* * *

Some people make plans for their lives and work hard on making them come to fruition. If someone had asked what Komori’s plans were for life after high school, he would have probably told them something about playing volleyball. 

Komori’s plans had never included _casing a hospital_ at three am, but here he was, wearing a black hoodie, a black surgical mask and sunglasses despite the time of night, trying to evade the cameras. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t so much casing the joint – and he had never thought he’d have to clarify – but rather lying in wait. The actual casing happened a week ago. 

What he wouldn’t do for his best friend.

Why Kiyoomi couldn’t do this himself – he was the one with the speed and the reflexes – was beyond him, but it had been raining non-stop for the past few days, so he was in a mood. Komori, respectfully, pretended he didn’t know what the mood was really about. They were best friends, but that was a little too personal even for him. He also knows that if he said anything, or even insinuated it, Kiyoomi would probably melt into a puddle of embarrassment and eat a hole through the floor.

Maybe it also had something to do with the new apartment he had just moved into – Komori’s phone was full of messages and long phone calls detailing his misery about his neighbour who got up at the ass-crack of dawn and thought he was auditioning for a talent show that wanted to find the best impersonator of a dying cat. Nevermind the fact that Kiyoomi didn’t even need to sleep and probably found all of this more endearing than annoying – courtesy of his big fat crush on the guy that he hadn’t wanted to fess up to since their last year of high school – but he loved to bitch and complain, and Komori found it amusing to listen to him. 

What he didn’t find amusing or even remotely tolerable was being up at dick o’clock in the morning because his prissy best friend was ‘too good’ to steal the medication he needed himself, which is why he was here now, peeking around a corner and waiting for Suna to give him the all-clear on the hospital staff.

Why Suna was involved in this, Komori didn’t know. He did know, however, that he was one sneaky bastard and somehow managed to charm the pants off all the nurses on shift tonight – or was it morning? – despite the fact that he was about as straight as a circle, and, if the messages he had accidentally taken a peek at, basically married to none other than Kiyoomi’s future brother in law. (At least if Kiyoomi got his head out of his ass long enough to admit that he wanted to date him. Komori’s been waiting for that admission going on four years now.)

Next time, Kiyoomi can do this himself. He’s the one out of the two of them who didn’t need sleep. Then again, he wouldn’t come within fifty feet of a hospital unless he was wearing a hazmat suit. No matter how many times Komori had to remind him that he was safe from germs and diseases, he didn’t want to hear it. Getting him inside a building specifically made for sick people? Yeah, that’s never going to happen, at least not in the next decade. It was an irrational fear that he still clung to, but a fear nonetheless. 

If Komori knows anything about Kiyoomi, it’s that he’s been holding onto fear for most of his life, and he’s reluctant to let go of it, maybe because he doesn’t know how or maybe because it’s the only comfort he knows.

This is ridiculous.

Komori finally receives the text from Suna that gives him the go-ahead for what isn’t even their first pharmacy-heist. He grabs the black nitrile gloves from the box in his backpack, puts them on and enters the hospital, hoping that the staff will ignore the kid who’s running around looking like a cat burglar.

Kiyoomi had better come bail him out if he gets arrested for this.

The heist itself is… rather anticlimactic. Surprisingly, everything goes according to plan, like the gods themselves have blessed their endeavour.

The hand-off for the access card that Suna swiped from one of the nurses goes off without a hitch. It’s held out subtly for Komori to simply grab as he walks past Suna who’s honest-to-god twirling his hair around his finger and making the nurses fall head over heels in love with him. If Komori didn’t know any better, he’d say he’s using some sort of magic trick on them.

He keeps walking, very casually one might say, towards the area where the medication he’s here for is stored. Hopefully, his disguise will make him undetectable. Suna at least assured him that the cameras wouldn’t be a problem. How he knows this, Komori doesn’t want to think about, but they’ve never gotten caught before, never even arisen suspicion. 

The access card works like a charm, opening the sliding doors and granting him entrance to the room with several refrigerators that contain sucrose bags. It’s chilly, and Komori is glad he’s wearing a hoodie now.

He unzips the cooling-bag he brought and opens one of the fridges. Really, he’d feel bad for this, but considering it’s either stealing or having Kiyoomi wither away because he refuses to even consider drinking actual blood, his conscience is clear. He grabs six bags, checking each for their expiration date and a quality seal, and throws them in before zipping the cooler back up.

Now, all he has to do is hand the card back to Suna and walk out of here.

Suna is still at the nurses’ station, flirting up a storm. He holds his hand out under the counter, waiting for Komori to deposit the card there. 

He makes his way past him, slipping the card back to Suna and heads for the exit, cool as a cucumber, his nerves only betrayed by the back of the hoodie which is soaked with sweat. Rounding the corner at the exit, he pulls his jacket out of his other bag because he can’t afford to get sick during their stay here. Their ‘training camp’ might be over, but they have a match coming up. 

Komori glances around the corner, sees the lights above the entrance flicker. Five minutes later, Suna saunters out, smirking like he does whenever he’s landed a killer spike that was aided by the fact that he managed to lead a blocker around by his nose. 

Like they agreed beforehand, Suna takes the bag from Komori to drop it off at Kiyoomi’s place. Meanwhile, Komori will head back to the hotel they’re staying at to at least get some sleep before they leave tomorrow– today– in the morning when humans should be awake.

They say goodbye and Suna disappears into the night. Only when Komori is back at the hotel does he realise that he didn’t give him the spare key and chip to Kiyoomi’s place.

Suna returns to the hotel thirty minutes later, sans bag, and tells Komori that he got the bag to Kiyoomi with no problems, which is a little odd, considering he didn’t have the key to get into the building.

He probably asked Kiyoomi to buzz him up, Komori thinks, because how else would he have gotten past the chip-reader at the entrance?

* * *

Next thing Kiyoomi knows, he’s on a bus heading for Sendai. He’s wearing his mask, his noise-cancelling headphones and the round, orange sunglasses that Komori got him last year for his birthday. It was an attempt at a joke, but joke’s on him: the orange tint of the lenses is perfect to offset unwanted light and makes long rides a lot more bearable. 

The noise-cancelling seems not to work on idiots, though, because from the front of the bus, he can hear Miya and Hinata cackling about some curry-advertisement. 

He hangs back when they arrive at the Kamei Arena, not eager to follow them off the bus, taking his time getting his bags from the cargo hold. This is not a tactic to stall the imminent horror of crowds that he will have to face.

His steps towards the entrance are slow, calculated. He gently pulls off his sunglasses and puts them into the equally gaudy case that he pushes back into a side-pocket of his bag. Before he enters, he takes a deep breath. His headphones are completely counterproductive in such situations, hence why he removed them ahead of disembarking the bus. It’s not like anyone can sneak up on him, but he prefers to be alert and aware of his surroundings. 

Navigating the crowds without coming into contact with anyone is as tough as it’s always been, but at least he has the added advantage of reflexes and speed. He makes it to the locker room in one piece, glad for once that he doesn’t need to calm his thundering heartbeat.

The rest of the team is already there, which isn’t surprising, considering he gave them a head-start. Some of them are halfway dressed in their uniforms. He doesn’t pay much attention to them, especially not to their pain-in-the-ass setter. He’s seen enough of his thighs already. And he won’t ever be able to forget that sight, even if he wanted to.

Which– he definitely does.

Hinata slips out of the locker room almost unnoticed, whistling some tune. Kiyoomi hears his footsteps pattering towards the public bathrooms. Please, if there is some entity that has power over the universe, let him not skimp on the soap when he washes his hands.

Another set of footsteps comes shortly after, followed by _Not gonna have any bowel issues today, are you?_

Kiyoomi sighs irritably. He knows that voice. He remembers that voice. That voice belongs to the insolent setter-brat that accused him of being normal. Not that he’s holding a grudge. He’s just going to show him how far from normal he can be. 

Miya leaves the changing room, probably in search of a fight. 

His thoughts are confirmed when he hears him join Hinata and the setter-brat, and smugly say _Whoa, hold it. Tobio, wouldcha mind not pickin’ a fight with our wing-spiker, hmmm?_

Kiyoomi wants to congratulate him on that wonderful display of marking his territory. Too bad he doesn’t realise that he’s pissing all over himself in that truly pathetic attempt of making Kageyama jealous. Hinata’s wearing the button he gave him around his neck at this very moment, because he never takes it off, not even to shower.

Predictably, he doesn’t rise to the bait. Then again, he probably didn’t even catch it. Indifference, or just straight-up ignorance, is the only weapon that works against Miya’s antics.

Exceptions include Sakusa Kiyoomi.

This might be due to the fact that one of his problems is that, no matter how hard he tries, he cannot be indifferent to Miya Atsumu. Ignoring him has also never been fruitful, which is Miya’s fault. He doesn’t let himself be ignored. 

Okay, so Kiyoomi could be trying a little harder than he is, but that’s an issue for another day.

For some reason, Bokuto decides to join the fray. Miya seems entirely unimpressed with the slew of questions he throws at him.

Then, Kiyoomi hears a voice he hasn’t heard in a while. If he still had a heartbeat, it would probably speed up. Not that he would ever admit that.

From nowhere comes Wakatoshi, diplomatic – or perhaps completely unaware of the nature of the situation he has just walked into – as always. It’s clear that he completely misinterpreted everything he’s overheard when he tells them, very magnanimously, _Don’t pick any fights. Settle your differences on the court_. Poor, sweet Wakatoshi, always taking everything at face value.

Another annoying character joins the scene, picking a fight with Hinata over their height which he already knows he’s won. 

Immature children, the lot of them. He hopes that particular brand of stupid isn’t contagious. It prompts him to peek his head out of the door after he put in his tinted contact lenses and say, _You’d better have all gotten your flu shots_.

Predictably, Miya reacts with his renowned ridiculousness. 

And poor, sweet Wakatoshi says _Of course I have_.

Kiyoomi is glad for the mask, he’s always had trouble hiding his smiles around Wakatoshi. He doesn’t pay it any mind, simply steps out and looks him in the eyes and declares that _Yeah, in last year’s Kurowashiki, you did beat the pants off of us, but it won’t happen again. This time, we’re coming out on top_.

Infuriatingly, all the bastard has to say to that is, _Really. Good Luck_. And he has the gall to sound sincere, too. Kiyoomi doesn’t know if he wants to punch him or do something else.

Well, that’s a lie. He knows which he’d rather do, or maybe what he would have preferred once upon a time in high school, but he’s not going to admit that to anyone, least of all himself. 

He hasn’t had nearly enough practise ignoring the emotions that spring to the surface when he’s around Wakatoshi and Miya. All he can do is push them down, but that doesn’t make them go away. It only lets them build up until one day, they’ll claw their way out of his chest, leaving a hole that he won’t be able to close in time, a hole too small to cram them back in. 

During the game, he doesn’t know who to pay attention to, Wakatoshi or Miya.

Wakatoshi has had his attention ever since he first met him, and it’s difficult to ignore him – even more so because he _doesn’t want to_ – both on and off the court. But he knows Wakatoshi is so far out of reach, he’ll never be able to approach him, never even get close.

Miya doesn’t give him much of a choice – the first action he takes demands attention, even though the rest of the crowd is only looking at Hinata. Not Kiyoomi. He couldn’t look anywhere else even if he wanted to, bless his still heart. 

—

The game… is a thing that happens and a thing that’s probably going to be on the mind of everyone on their team for the foreseeable future.

Despite his best efforts, he gets roped into accompanying the rest of the team to a bar near the arena. It’s not like he has much of a choice in the matter. What else is he supposed to do? Wait on the bus until all his teammates return, probably drunk and loud and– 

He sighs for the fourth time in ten minutes, seated at a large table in the back of the restaurant, trying his best to touch as little of the surface area as possible. He wiped down the chair and the table beforehand, of course, but he doesn’t know how much dirt and grime has accumulated in the wood over the years. A handful of disinfectant wipes won’t be able to get rid of that, no matter how many times he scrubs.

At least the more annoying members of the team are seated a little further down the table. He’s near a wall and there’s a free chair between him and Shion. But of course, his luck doesn’t hold out.

Akaashi shows up and Bokuto gives Miya the biggest puppy-dog eyes that Kiyoomi has ever seen, and makes him give up his seat. And Miya, annoying jerk that he is, takes the free one next to Kiyoomi instead of doing everyone a favour and getting a table for himself.

Kiyoomi scoots his chair as close to the wall as he can, but he doesn’t get very far. His only option would be to fuse with it, but judging by the stains, that might do more bad than good.

It doesn’t take very long for a waiter to come to take their order. Kiyoomi waits until everyone is done, already having made peace with the fact that he’s going to have to bear the intermingling smell of various dishes, when the waiter looks at him, pen and notepad in hand and asks, “What can I get for you?”

Kiyoomi blinks. Not ordering anything would be suspicious. But he can’t very well eat the food here unless he wants to blow chunks in the bathroom. That was a one-time experience that he’d rather not repeat, especially not when he’s around his team.

“Coconut water, with a straw,” he says stiffly. 

The waiter is smiling patiently. “And to eat?”

“Nothing.”

He nods, a little perplexed, but writes down his order and tells the table that the food will be out as soon as possible.

“Not hungry after that match, Omi-Omi?” Miya teases. “Y’gotta be starving after all them service aces.”

Kiyoomi swallows. There’s that scent again, like the earth after rainfall. “I’m not eating food prepared by someone else.”

“Right, the germ thing,” he says, like it’s news to him. Like he hadn’t offered Kiyoomi some of his breakfast every day since he moved in next door, and hadn’t been rejected every time. 

Thankfully, he decides to annoy Shion instead, so Kiyoomi gets a few minutes of peace until the drinks arrive. He busies himself with his phone, but every so often, he gets this prickling sensation at the back of his neck and some sort of buzzing around his head.

When he glances up, Akaashi is just turning his head to face Bokuto.

He ignores it the first few times it happens, but on the fifth time, he levels Akaashi with a stare that would turn a lesser man to stone.

“Is there something you need, Akaashi?”

He smiles innocently, just a small thing, barely noticeable. “Sorry, Sakusa,” he begins. He pauses for a brief moment, choosing his next words carefully. “I just find you… impossible to read.” His gaze minutely shifts to regard Miya. “Surprisingly, _he_ is like an open book.”

Kiyoomi’s eyebrows furrow, trying to understand what that’s supposed to mean, whereas Bokuto’s shoot up his forehead, arching comically. 

Akaashi has always been somewhat of an enigma to him. He seems normal, detached, collected, but he knows that there has to be more to him than that. The fact that he’s married to Bokuto alone is an indicator that he’s probably not as ordinary as he pretends to be. 

Every time their teams played each other during high school, Akaashi would look at Kiyoomi and his teammates like they were a puzzle he was trying to solve. He’d stare at them from the corner of his eye, calculating, assessing. And it always seemed like he knew more than he was letting on. 

“Perhaps you should stick to books,” Kiyoomi grumbles.

“I will keep that in mind,” he says, eyes glinting.

They keep eye-contact for a moment longer before Bokuto pulls Akaashi close to whisper something in his ear. Kiyoomi makes the executive decision not to try and eavesdrop, solely because he’s impressed that Bokuto has a third volume apart from his outside-voice and yelling-in-a-crowed-club voice.

Of course, he can’t do much about the fact that he still hears it like Bokuto spoke right next to him. _What do you mean, hard to read_?

Akaashi is watching him, clearly waiting for him to react, so of course, he ignores them. Pretends to answer Komori’s messages. Types a few characters, deletes them again. Tells him he’s stuck at a team outing with Miya right next to him.

He hears the waiter approaching with a tray of drinks – mostly alcoholic, from what he can tell. His eyes only leave his phone when the waiter is reaching out his hand and places an unopened bottle of coconut water and a packaged straw down in front of him. 

Stealth is not one of Akaashi’s abilities. His eyes are set on him, occasionally sparing a glance at Miya which makes his brows furrow and a minute frown appear on his face. That, Kiyoomi can understand.

He grabs the pack of disinfectant wipes from his jacket pocket and wipes the bottle down meticulously. The wipe disappears into a zip-lock bag, pinched between two fingers. He removes the straw from its wrapping and unscrews the bottle before dropping it in, pulls the straps of his mask off his ears and takes a sip. Then, he turns his torso so as to obscure it from the view of the others, takes the bottle with his iron capsules – the ones he brings when he has a game – and shakes them out into his hand before popping them into his mouth. He bites down to release the liquid and quickly swallows them, straightening in his chair and sucking on the straw again.

Akaashi arches an eyebrow at him from across the table. 

Kiyoomi figures he’ll wait at least until everyone has eaten to ask the questions that are undoubtedly swirling around his head. 

The food arrives and Kiyoomi does his best not to visibly wrinkle his nose. Miya, the jerk that he is, ordered the one dish on the menu that contains inordinate amounts of garlic, just to spite Kiyoomi.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Akaashi trying and failing to suppress an amused smile.

“Hey, Omi-Omi,” Bokuto says through a mouthful of food. He swallows before he opens his mouth again, but Kiyoomi had already seen more than he needed. “You sure you’re not going to order anything?”

Kiyoomi side-eyes Miya as he’s stuffing rice into his mouth like a barbarian. “I just lost my appetite. Possibly forever.”

“Aw, Omi-Omi, don’t be like that,” Miya says, and there’s a piece of rice stuck to his cheek. Kiyoomi suppresses the urge to wipe it off. He doesn’t want to get anywhere near Miya’s mouth, and he certainly doesn’t want to touch his cheek, even though his skin looks surprisingly soft.

“Stop making that noise,” is what he says, fingers curling into the fabric of his sweats. 

“Y’ain’t gotta act like such a sourpuss,” he says. His eyes crinkle at the corners, his lips quirking into a smirk as he tilts his head to the side, exposing his neck. He holds out the bowl of food like an offering, but Kiyoomi knows what he really means when he says, “Y’want a bite?”

There’s a familiar dry heat making itself known as he glances at the skin on his neck, sees the vein pulsing and the bob of his throat as he swallows. He hasn’t ever had the desire, the need to drink from anyone, drink blood at all, but– of course, Miya is the exception to every rule he knows, every rule he’s made for himself.

It’s impossible, but somehow, Miya knows. He didn’t think he was serious before, but he’s certain now. He knows what Kiyoomi is, and for some reason, it doesn’t seem to faze him. The asshole is making jokes about it. 

Kiyoomi hopes it’s a joke. Because if it isn’t, Miya is even more of an idiot than he had thought. Not to mention, with all that garlic in his system, he’d probably lose a lot more blood than anticipated.

Not– Kiyoomi isn’t thinking about taking him up on his offer. No, he’s not wondering what his blood would taste like. He doesn’t want to drink anyone’s blood, least of all Miya’s. 

“I’d sooner chew off my own arm,” he retorts, averting his eyes.

He grabs his coconut water and gets up from the table, not eager to be around Miya after that. He can’t believe he even entertained the thought–

The air outside is brisk, not that it matters to Kiyoomi. It’s dark already, which is just fine. Fewer people to stare at him.

He doesn’t want– Miya is not– No. 

Ah, there’s Akaashi coming now. Not surprising.

“You remind me of Tsukishima,” he starts, and Kiyoomi pretends it makes sense, for argument’s sake. “He was always difficult to read, but you… it’s completely impossible. What happened to you between high school and now?”

“You can’t read people.”

He sighs and leans against the wall of the restaurant, staples his fingers. “I can. Their thoughts, anyhow. I used to be able to read yours, too. Not anymore, though.” A flicker of a smile ghosts across Akaashi’s features. “When did it happen?”

It’s a testament to how done he is that he doesn’t even question the fact that apparently, Akaashi is a telepath. What has his life come to? Next, he’ll find out that werewolves are real, too, along with all the other legends and ghost stories his grandma used to tell him to get him to behave.

“Two years,” he answers and prepares himself for the consoling words that are probably on Akaashi’s tongue.

“I’m not going to give you pity, because you don’t need it. But living off of iron supplements… Why?”

Kiyoomi sighs. He doesn’t want to have to explain the whole process, so he says, “Getting blood is a hassle.”

Akaashi smiles, “I heard from someone that you got Komori and Suna to rob a hospital. Not _that_ difficult, I gather, considering they haven’t been arrested yet.”

Kiyoomi maintains that he did not make Komori do anything. He took it upon himself to start robbing pharmacies with Suna. He’s not going to stop them, of course. It’ll be a hot day in hell before he sets foot in a germ-infested building that houses hundreds of sick people.

“I’m going back to the bus,” Kiyoomi tells him. 

Kiyoomi doesn’t wait for a response, simply starts walking back to where the bus was parked earlier when they arrived. 

He can’t help thinking about the thing Akaashi said. Why would it be surprising that he can easily read Miya’s thoughts? Did he expect not to be able to, like with Kiyoomi? And wouldn’t that mean–

That Miya isn’t human?

* * *

Thanks to Miya’s daily performances in the kitchen, Kiyoomi is well aware of the fact that the walls are thin. He hadn’t thought about the predicament that would put him in, other than having to listen to Miya screech along to the radio every morning. It’s never been an issue before, which, in retrospect, is strange. He has been living in the apartment since he joined the Black Jackals, after all. 

It’s late, almost midnight. A winter breeze is blowing softly into the room, making the curtains in front of the open window flutter. The street is quiet, safe for a few drunken idiots stumbling around and laughing loudly. Blocking out their noise is easy for Kiyoomi, but only because he’s had practise with tuning out such people. He’s in bed, watching a recorded match of the Eastern Japan Paper Mills when he hears Miya settle into his bed on the other side of the wall. He spares a glance at the alarm clock from college that’s gathering figurative dust on his bedside table, which tells him that Miya broke his personal record for time spent in the bathroom. Normally, he’s in and out in thirty minutes.

The volume is low, so it doesn’t mask the sound of a drawer opening in Miya’s bedroom. Kiyoomi doesn’t think much of it. He keeps watching the game. The team they’re playing against is good but doesn’t stand a chance, not against Komori’s superb ball retrieval skills, but it’s not like Kiyoomi has anything better to do.

Watching Komori dig up a spike that sharp has Kiyoomi smile in the safety of his bedroom. He’s been good since high school, but in those past few years, he’s grown into a monster.

From the other side of the wall, Kiyoomi hears a bottle click. 

He doesn’t think much of it, at least not until he hears a soft “ _ah_ ”, barely a breath but loud enough for him to hear and–

Miya isn’t– he’s not–

Another sound, not as soft this time. It’s more of a groan. Kiyoomi stills. It almost sounds like Miya is jerking off in the other room. The thought alone shoots a thrill down his spine. 

He swallows against his suddenly too-dry throat, a spark of heat in his stomach at the image his mind supplies.

He–

Miya knows what Kiyoomi is. He has to know that he can hear him. 

This is worse than a rainy day. God, so much worse. Miya is doing this on purpose. Why, Kiyoomi doesn’t know. Perhaps he wants to put the final nail in the coffin of his sanity. 

A shuddering “ _fuck_ ” sounds through the wall, and every nerve in Kiyoomi’s body goes taut, hands clutching at the sheets. The warmth spreads, up to his chest and down his arms, but the brunt of it is centred in his stomach, far too close to his groin.

He hasn’t felt like this in– well, no. He’s never felt like this. The heat, he knows, but it’s usually focused in his throat when he’s gone too long without nutrition or anytime Miya is concerned. This– this heat, it’s not dry, it’s scorching and viscous and _good_ , and he wants more of it. It coils tightly in his gut, slipping lower and lower.

Kiyoomi pauses the game, puts his laptop on the floor and inhales–

The streets are dry outside, his window is open, but it smells like petrichor. The scent is heavy in the air, like he’s standing right in the middle of a grass field after rain. 

He needs to– he should leave, he shouldn’t listen to this– but it’s like he’s rooted to the bed. 

Another muffled sound, not quite a whimper but close–

Kiyoomi hears fabric tearing, looks down at his hands and sees his ripped sheets, four lines on both sides for each finger. 

His traitorous mind supplies him with the image of Miya lying on his own bed, naked, sweat beading on his skin, a hand around himself, slowly stroking from the head down to the base, smearing the precum on the tip with his thumb–

Kiyoomi feels himself twitch in his pants. He rolls over on his stomach, pressing a pillow over his head to dampen the noises–

A deep sigh, soft, content; then, “ _Ohm_ –” cut off by a whimper that has Kiyoomi grinding against his mattress before he can think to stop himself–

The pressure feels heavenly and he buries his face in his pillow, glad he doesn’t need air and reaches a hand down, presses his palm against his dick. His underwear is going to be ruined, and he’s not far behind. 

He thinks the worst is over. 

Then Miya gets loud, a high-pitched moan falling from his lips. 

The sound travels through the wall into Kiyoomi’s ears, plays on repeat, making his dick that’s straining against his underwear, jerk, a wet spot forming. The noises on the other side of the wall are like a siren song, lulling him into a trance. He’d gladly take the plunge into the sea, let himself be pulled under if only it’ll make him hear more. The water burning in his lungs doesn’t matter, only makes him want to dive deeper. 

He welcomes the heat clawing at his skin, lets himself be consumed by the flames licking at him, lets fire flood his veins. Kiyoomi revels in his suffering, in the delicious torture that’s being inflicted upon him. Every sound, every whine, every whimper adding fuel to the fire.

Kiyoomi bites his lip, fangs digging into the flesh, and ruts desperately against his mattress, trying to find relief from coiling heat in his groin, his stomach tightening, but it’s not enough. 

He thinks about his thighs, how they looked today at practise, glistening with sweat. Thinks about Miya stretching, thinks about what he might look like now and closes his fist around his dick, squeezing tightly. 

Hears another cut-off _Ohm–_ coupled with a rattling breath, remembers the private smile that Miya wore today when he thought no one saw him. The coil goes taut and Kiyoomi comes, twitching in his underwear and pressing his face into his pillow. 

The warmth, the remnants of the pleasure subside slowly, gradually, until only satisfaction remains. Out of habit, he takes a breath, smelling honey and caramel. 

And then he feels his jizz soaking through the fabric and he jumps up at once, off the bed and in the direction of the bathroom. 

His clothes are a lost cause, stained with his spend, so he throws them into the trash to be burned later. 

When he steps into the shower, he barely feels the water against his tingling skin, veins still flooded with the high his orgasm provided. It makes the thought of having to strip his sheets slip to the back of his mind, a mild buzz. On the forefront are the noises still coming from Miya’s room, and he wills himself not to get hard again. 

His refractory period is almost non-existent, and his dick is raring to go again, courtesy of the moans sounding through the wall. The embarrassment from his actions is slowly creeping in though, and it’s a strong enough repellant for him to focus on the spray of water instead, willing his libido to simmer down.

As soon as he’s out of the shower and dried off, he grabs ear-plugs because Miya is _still_ going. Before he strips off the sheets on his bed, he puts on his earphones to save himself some dignity. One slip-up, he can live with. How could he have known that Miya would start jerking off while he was just minding his own business? But now, there’s no excuse. He can’t listen to this again, can’t get off on the sounds again, shouldn’t even have done it in the first place.

The baffling thing is that Miya _has_ to know that Kiyoomi can hear him. Which invites the thought that maybe he’s doing this to fuck with him. Miya is shameless on the best of days, but prone to embarrassment. So the fact that he did this, with the knowledge he would be overheard, has to mean that his desire to screw with Kiyoomi’s brain won out over the ensuing humiliation. He wanted to be heard, wanted Kiyoomi to bear witness to his pleasure. 

How Kiyoomi had never heard him before this night, he doesn’t know. Because even if he tried to be quiet, the telltale sounds would have still travelled over to Kiyoomi’s ears. The possibility of Miya not having done it after he had moved in is quickly discarded. 

Just for a second, Kiyoomi entertains the thought that this is Miya’s screwed-up way of flirting. Figures he’d give him a front-row seat to his late-night escapades instead of just asking him out like a normal person. 

* * *

In Kiyoomi’s third year of high school, he tells himself he is scoping out the competition when he watches Inarizaki during warm-up. He is trying to find flaws in their plays. Trying to get an edge over his opponent. Observing their warm-up while he’s standing in line for spiking practise is definitely going to give him something he can use against them, should they end up playing each other. 

What he isn’t doing is watching Miya for the sole purpose of seeing him in his element, doing what he loved most in the world. It’s no secret that Miya Atsumu had found the love of his life in the sport of volleyball, even if the love was perhaps not equal on both sides. He was always chasing after it, trying to prove himself worthy, while the demands of the object of his affections steadily rose. It was heartbreaking to watch and captivating at the same time. Kiyoomi couldn’t lie: he admired his drive. Always trying to improve, trying to be the best, no matter the cost. 

But gods, did it annoy him to no end how perfect he looked in his new jersey, donning the number one like he was made to wear it. Now everyone was dancing to his tune, and though he was reluctant to admit it, Kiyoomi ached for a chance to follow the music. He wondered what it would be like to hit one of his tosses in a real game. He hadn’t known to appreciate it during Youth Camp, hadn’t thought to savour it. As irritating as Miya was on the best of days, his tosses could give the impression that you were on top of the world when you hit them. 

When he watches Miya set, his thighs straining as he performs the ridiculous move he’d become known for last year during the match against Karasuno, he feels the heat – the heat that accompanied anything concerning Miya as of late – he’d been trying to ignore flare up in his stomach. Once he got over the incident at the Youth Camp, he had the unfortunate realisation that Miya was actually good-looking, as long as he didn’t talk, because he had the propensity for spewing poison just for boredom’s sake.

His thighs, though, are a whole ‘nother calibre. 

—Miya made him want, and even though it terrified him, it also made him hopeful. Because, while the thought of getting close to anyone made him want to hide himself away, he wanted to get close to him, maybe – and that’s a big maybe – even touch him. He’d never wanted to come into direct contact with anyone outside of his family, and even that became too much as he got older. 

How he wanted to touch him and be touched by him. Especially those thighs. He could admit he was curious, eager even– but he wasn’t delusional. He didn’t know how he might react if he got the chance. It might be the best thing that ever happened to him or the cause of a panic attack. 

The last time he thought he was ready to touch someone – to give his mother a hug – he forgot how to breathe when he felt her arms around him. A choking ten-year-old was perhaps not what the EMTs had been expecting that day. 

He found out later that it had been a panic attack, which was the reason his parents finally sent him to therapy. Because they understood that this – this fear of touch, the fear of contamination – wasn’t just a _funny little_ quirk of his (dubbed so by his sceptic aunt who believed that psychology was a scam), but a condition that will sometimes take over his entire body and exert control over his faculties. And if he didn’t learn to deal with it, it might get worse than a panic attack because of a hug he hadn’t known he wasn’t ready for.

But what he wants and what he can do are two different things.— 

They made his pants feel that much tighter and his throat feel that much drier and he longed for something to quell the thirst it awoke in him. The thought that this would involve touching another person, exposing himself to their germs, didn’t make him so much as flinch. It was an addendum, a footnote. He’d bear it for a chance to learn how they might feel against his skin, around his head. He had no idea how it would make him feel, but he wanted to be able to find out. Not necessarily with Miya, but with someone. 

–Miya wasn’t a cure, because there was no need for one, but he was the catalyst that made Kiyoomi want to find out what lies beyond what he was comfortable with.

When he sends the last toss that results in a spike that makes the crowds cheer even though the real game hasn’t started yet, something odd happens. A smile graces his features. It’s not smug or arrogant or cocky. It is but a small thing, just a barely-there up-turn of his lips. To Kiyoomi, it’s pure light. He wants to capture and preserve it like a photograph. It is but a fleeting image, not made to be frozen in time but to witness in the moment and wonder if it happened after it’s gone. Rather, he would catch it in a jar like fireflies on a summer evening to observe closely before he releases them back into the wild. Because he knows it’ll never be his to keep, his to hold. 

That smile makes him ache in a way he’d never felt before, yearning to see it again, wondering how it would taste. His chest constricts, working against a weight that isn’t there. His heart gives a twinge–

Oh.

The spark that had been sitting idly in his veins, the simmering heat that he had been ignoring for a year now, had been getting bigger and bigger over time. He’d gotten used to it, the growth so slow, the increase of heat so steady that he had become accustomed to it. What he hadn’t realised before he saw that one genuine smile was that the spark had lit a flame that flared into a forest fire and he was standing smack-dab in the middle of it, with no means of escape. 

_Oh_. 

This is bad. 

An almost manic smile flits across Kiyoomi’s face, stretching his mouth so wide that he could feel his dimples appearing on his cheeks. 

The goddamn asshole made him fall again without so much as touching him. Lit a fire in him without making Kiyoomi notice that he was burning up at all. Kiyoomi would be mad if he weren’t so goddamn impressed. 

It’s indisputable, Kiyoomi has horrible taste in guys. First, the one guy who stood on a pedestal – that he himself put him on – so high that Kiyoomi would never be able to reach him. Then, the guy who was famous for being a monumental jerk and the best high school setter in Japan. Why? Because they managed to get a reaction out of him? Because they made him think about them even after their interactions were over? Because they challenged him? 

The rare instance of a Miya wearing an honest smile disappeared when he decided to reprimand a first-year for ‘slacking off during warm-up’, but that didn’t matter. 

Kiyoomi was already aflame. 

And then his chest was actually burning, air knocked out of his lungs, courtesy of the ball that Komori had sent his way. He would have gotten it had he not been too distracted to pay attention to his own team’s warm-up. 

The mishap gave him a chance to readjust himself and get a drink. But unlike his dick, he couldn’t move his heart around until it fit comfortably in his chest again. At least he could blame the blush on his cheeks on exertion, the red on his ears and back of his neck on embarrassment from failing to get the ball. 

The chance of smothering the flames was long gone, he knew that much. Maybe he could convince himself that he still had a chance of getting out of this without getting burnt if he just ignored the flames licking at him from inside his chest. 

If nothing else, maybe the fire he’d instilled in him could burn out the fear that held him back from acting on his desires.

* * *

Kiyoomi is reasonably sure that he angered a god in a past life and was cursed with making the acquaintance of Miya Atsumu, and subsequently, be driven insane by attempting to understand him, never finding satisfaction, never completing this impossible task he’s been given. 

Finding anything that might help him understand and account for Miya's insane actions and why he does anything is an exercise in futility. 

Miya makes all of his carefully crafted analyses null and void with unpredictability. When Kiyoomi expects him to zig, he does a cartwheel. When he expects him to say no, he starts singing instead. There is no winning the game that Miya is playing, because there are no rules, or the rules change at his whim, or maybe it’s not a game at all but a stage-play that Kiyoomi doesn’t have the script for.

Why he keeps trying to roll a boulder up a hill that adheres to Miya’s every whim, he doesn’t know. When he started, the hill was smooth, barely steep enough to be a challenge at all. But now, there are twists and turns and holes in the ground that he might fall into because his vision is limited. Every time he thinks he’s reached a conclusion, some kind of concrete point of data concerning Miya, the ground crumbles beneath him and he finds himself back at the foot of the hill. 

Of course, it makes sense that all his previous attempts had failed when he finds out that Miya isn’t human. At least that’s what Akaashi implied. Strongly hinted at. Alluded to. 

Maybe he was making a joke about Miya being so single-minded that it surprised him he had thoughts at all. 

What Kiyoomi is certain of is that Miya seems to know more than he lets on and that his actions are, if confusing, calculated. 

He’s reasonably sure that him overhearing Miya was entirely intentional. Why, he doesn’t know, which doesn’t surprise him. He’ll probably never know why Miya does anything, other than to drive Kiyoomi insane one way or another. 

He tries to forget about the incident, which of course is a futile endeavour because every time Kiyoomi sees him from the corner of his eyes, his stomach tightens and heat spreads through his body, remembering the sounds he made. He staunchly refuses to meet Miya’s eyes when they’re at practise. 

Miya, on the other hand, is acting like nothing out of the ordinary occurred. It seems Miya has lost his sense of shame somewhere between bemoaning his jokes not being laughed at, telling them anyways and the repeated humiliation that accompanied this, and deciding to jerk off with a neighbour (who has the ability to hear an ant crawling from twelve metres away) on the other side of the wall. This is the only explanation why he doesn’t run around with his tail tucked between his legs, demanding that no one look at him.

He thinks that Miya’s refusal to be embarrassed about his escapades is the worst of it, but of course, he’s proven wrong once again.

Miya, despite Kiyoomi’s repeated refusal, has not stopped asking about them ‘hanging out’ at his apartment. Every time, after practice, on their way back to the building they live in, he’d make the offer for Kiyoomi to _come over, have a beer, kick back and relax, come on, it’ll be fun, Omi_. And every time, Kiyoomi would refuse, giving allergies as an excuse.

Maybe he’s been worn down, maybe his curiosity has finally won out. Instead of cutting his losses and moving as far away from him as possible, he finally gives in to Miya’s offer. Perhaps this is a step in the right direction. A direction that might lead him to an answer as to what kind of game Miya is playing.

Surprising absolutely no one, least of all Kiyoomi, what he finds is not an answer but more frustration. 

Spending time with Miya outside of practise is–

He is charmingly irritating. Of course, Kiyoomi had already known this. If he didn’t find Miya’s personality intriguing, he wouldn’t find himself stuck in this dilemma. 

It’s become a mere irritation he has learnt to deal with, nothing more than an itch he can’t scratch. 

–is nice, though Kiyoomi would never admit it, not even under threat of torture. 

When Miya isn’t surrounded by people, his personality retreats, he mellows out. Or rather, he plays it up around other people, acts more stupid, behaves like an idiot.

He’s still an idiot when it’s just Kiyoomi and him, but less so. Instead of having the urge to serve a ball at the back of his head, Kiyoomi just occasionally wants to smother him with one of the surprisingly many throw-pillows on Miya’s couch.

Miya’s apartment – while it should look just like Kiyoomi’s – is an entirely different place. It’s warm, for one. Then again, Kiyoomi does not care about heat or absence thereof in his environment, which is why he doesn’t bother turning on the heating in his apartment. 

But more than that, Miya’s place is a home. The walls are decorated with pictures – some of his high school team, some of his family, even some of the Black Jackals. When Kiyoomi sees them the first time, smiling at him from the frames, he feels an odd sense of longing, of wanting to be part of them. 

Strangely, along with pictures, there are also several paintings – though Kiyoomi suspects they are prints – of fables his grandma used to tell him as a child. They look out of place and yet like they’re exactly where they’re supposed to be. 

There’s something to be said about life imitating art.

He thinks, over the course of them spending time together, that he and Miya become friends, if tentative ones. 

Befriending Miya is a strange thing. Kiyoomi remembers him from years ago, remembers hearing about his blatant disregard for niceties, his abhorrent character, his relationship with his team. He remembers the Miya that only cared about volleyball, about getting better. He remembers the rude teenager that antagonised people for the sake of sowing discord.

This is not that Miya.

This is Atsumu, setter for the Black Jackals, jerk extraordinaire, wannabe comedian and notorious idiot. He’s an asshole, and Kiyoomi likes him so much. 

He had thought he had already burnt up, but after spending time with him, he realises that what he had thought a forest fire was but a singular flame, nothing compared to the blaze he finds himself in now. Every time he enters his apartment, every time he sits on his couch, watching true crime shows second and Atsumu first, he is doused with kerosene, making the flames grow brighter, hotter, _more_. And Kiyoomi, he wants to be consumed.

Which is why, when they’re walking home (together), they enter the convenience store that’s the halfway point between the Black Jackals training facility and their apartment building, Atsumu doesn’t have to ask if Kiyoomi wants to come over and have a beer. They’ve found a routine now. When Kiyoomi is up for spending time together after practise, he’ll wait for him in the locker room. They leave (together) and make their way home in comfortable silence. They stop at the store because Atsumu never keeps beer at his place, but somehow always has coconut water in his fridge. 

By the tenth time they’ve done this, Kiyoomi can’t remember a time when he didn’t spend his afternoons and evenings and nights watching true crime shows with Atsumu. He can’t remember why he’s been so reluctant to do this.

Against all odds, he likes it. 

He likes knowing that Atsumu arranges the food in his fridge according to colour. That he has seven mugs in his kitchen cupboard which range from red to purple, or so he’s told. He knows that there are one yellow, one green and one blue mug in the middle, so he figures he’s trying to replicate the colours of a rainbow. The last mug is black and used for guests. 

Atsumu swears up and down that Osamu is a pain in the ass, complains about him at least once a day, but Kiyoomi knows that his brother is the most important person in his life. 

What he really wants to know is what Atsumu gets out of them spending time together. But how is he going to find out? Ask him? That’s preposterous.

So, like almost every day of the past month, he finds himself in Atsumu’s living room, sitting on his couch, surrounded by several throw-pillows and the smell of rain. The room is dark, as it always is – Atsumu seems to know about his sensitive eyes – the only source of light the glow of the tv. 

Kiyoomi has learned, over the time that he’s spent here, that he should not focus on Atsumu when they’re watching whatever show he selects. His eyes play tricks on him, making it seem like Atsumu’s pupils glow viridescent in the dark whenever the screen flickers just right and illuminates them. 

This time, there’s no beer, no drinks, just them, sitting in the middle of the sofa as opposed to each taking one end. If Kiyoomi moved his leg just an inch, he’d be touching Atsumu’s thigh. He stays stock-still, the temptation too strong. Against his better judgement, he inhales once, the air in the apartment permeating his mask and sinking into his skin, his veins, his bones. 

Every time he enters, he makes a promise to himself not to breathe, and every time, he breaks it. If he closed his eyes, he would think he was sitting in a forest after rain. 

It makes his throat feel dry, aching for relief, though he does not know what could bring him salvation. He swallows his saliva, but it does nothing to dispel the drought.

Atsumu turns his head just so, looking at Kiyoomi. His pupils flash green for a second, but Kiyoomi doesn’t pay them any attention, focusing instead on the way his lip quirks into a half-smile.

Perhaps he stares too long, entranced by the plump bottom lip and the arch of the cupid’s bow, because the smile grows wider, his lip curling smugly.

“See somethin’ y’like, Omi?” he asks, tilting his head to the side and back, exposing his neck, the curve of his throat and jutting out his chin.

Kiyoomi says nothing, captivated by the pulse of Atsumu’s vein, the blood flowing hotly underneath his skin. 

“Y’want a taste?” he offers, and Kiyoomi doesn’t know what he’s suggesting. If he’s talking about his lips or his throat. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what he wants more or what it would do to the fire inside him. He longs to find out.

He finds himself nodding, tongue-tied and speechless, agreeing to whatever Atsumu is willing to give. And Atsumu leans closer, closer, until Kiyoomi can feel his breath against his mask. His eyes close without his permission. He presses his lips against the mask softly, just atop Kiyoomi’s own. 

Everything stutters to a halt. 

Kiyoomi’s whole body shudders violently, his muscles taut and clenched, fighting against his instincts of gripping Atsumu to give him a taste of what it feels like to be consumed.

When the warmth is gone and Atsumu is no longer a hair’s width away from him, he blinks his eyes open to see him with a fox-grin smile, lounging right next to him.

“Why did you do that?” he asks, trying to ignore the flames that are licking at him from inside his throat, spread down all the way to his stomach.

“Got tired of waitin’ fer ya,” he breathes, his tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip. His mouth is open just wide enough for Kiyoomi to see it run over his teeth, from canine to canine. 

The burn in his throat flares, his stomach tightening. He wants to feel those teeth against his skin just as much as he wants his own to sink into Atsumu’s neck and–

“What?”

“Yer dense as a rock, Omi. I dunno how much more I was s’posed ta do. Was moaning yer name not enough of a hint?”

“You–” he croaks against the parchment feel of his throat. 

The smirk appears, smug and infuriating. “Y’want somethin’ t’drink, Omi? Yer throat’s gotta be dry.”

Kiyoomi swallows the saliva that’s gathered in his mouth, ignoring his fangs. He gets up from the sofa and walks into the kitchen where he knows a bottle of coconut water is waiting for him in the fridge.

He takes one and opens the trash can with his foot, drops the mask in and unscrews the bottle cap.

Atsumu comes sauntering in and hops onto the counter, wearing his fox-grin smile and jeans that stretch across his thighs in a way that makes Kiyoomi want to tear them off. 

Instead, he gulps down the bottle, but it barely makes a difference. He knows it won’t quell the heat in his veins.

Seeing Atsumu, being surrounded by _him_ , his smell, his–

“Omi, come’ere,” he offers.

Against his better judgement, he does. He takes the few steps until he’s standing in front of him, just a breath away from touching him.

“Ya like me,” he tells him. He says it like it’s an indisputable fact. 

Kiyoomi knows this, but that doesn’t mean he’s just going to admit it. “How would you know?” 

“Yer burnin’ for me,” Atsumu says, looking straight at him in the dark. He flashes his teeth in a cocksure grin. 

“How–”

“A fox can always see the fire that’s been lit for’im.” 

His legs splay wider, an invitation for Kiyoomi to step between them and settle there, so that is what he does. Atsumu’s thighs bracket his hips, and the bastard hooks his legs together behind Kiyoomi to pull him even closer, clenches his thighs around him to keep him there. 

He clenches his fists, inhales deeply through his nose– and there it is, the smell of petrichor. It washes over him and he slowly lowers his fists on his thighs, releases them and spreads his fingers over the material of his goddamn skinny jeans because he was right. Atsumu is the type of person who wears jeans at home and if they didn't make his thighs look even better all spread wide for him on the counter top, he'd give him shit for being like that. Instead, he grips all the flesh his fingers can reach and leans in and finally wipes that infuriating smirk off the jerk's face. 

And Atsumu smiles, not a smirk or a grin, nothing cocksure or smug, a genuine, blinding smile. Despite the fact that Kiyoomi hasn’t needed oxygen in two years, it feels like he got the breath punched out of him because–

His smile tastes like sunlight on your skin in spring, when the breeze chills you deep down to your bones but the flowers are blooming and the birds are chirping and you know it’s a new beginning. The cold is long gone, the ice has melted away, snow making way for grass to run on and cornflowers to sprout. The sunlight feels warm on your skin and it feels an awful lot like hope blooming in your chest.

–Atsumu pulls back, holds his hands on either side of Kiyoomi’s face and asks, “Can I?”

Kiyoomi twists a hand into the fabric of his shirt and hauls him back in, muttering, demanding, “Yes, yes,” against his lips. He doesn’t even know what he’s agreeing to, but he wants nothing more than to give himself over to the heat that’s thrumming in his veins.

Atsumu ducks down to place a kiss against his jugular and purrs, “I wanna taste every inch’a ya.”

And Kiyoomi breaks, shudders against him and just lets him do as he pleases, lets him card his fingers through his hair and yank, hard, and lets him wrap his legs around him to draw him closer, lets him rub their dicks together through their pants and lets him feed the flame, lets himself burn up and just succumb to the heat.

—

Later, when their hair is wet from the showers they took and they’re both sitting on the couch in the dark, when the fire’s but a hum in his bones, comfortably warm, Atsumu turns to him and smirks, mirth flashing across his face. 

“So, Omi… can ya turn into a bat?”

Kiyoomi attempts to smother him with a pillow, ignoring the barking laughter that’s spilling from his lips.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please feel free to leave kudos and/or even a comment to let me know what you thought about it!
> 
> also, to clear up any confusion that might arise: atsumu is a kitsune in this, with my personal twist on it
> 
> i'm on twitter @firtreeao3


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